


a loving feeling

by Slightly Anonymous Sapphic (Cinnamonbookworm)



Category: K-pop, Mamamoo, Real Person Fiction, 우리 결혼했어요 | We Got Married
Genre: Blackmail, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, F/F, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, Press and Tabloids, as always both ships are heavily present, i get on my soapbox and do 45k worth of preaching in prose, industry meta, mentions of abuse, people fall in love, people fall out of love, still somehow all rated T tho, takes place circa early 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-03 01:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 45,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10957047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamonbookworm/pseuds/Slightly%20Anonymous%20Sapphic
Summary: "But do you want to know what else I know, Yongsunnie?” He moves a hand towards the railing, and her hand slides further up, trying to keep him from touching her. He blocks the entrance to the stairwell. She backs two steps up. “Rumor has it,” he whispers. “That there’s a secret in Mamamoo."Solar attempts navigation. Eric searches for self. Byul swallows something down. Wheein finds a wall.





	1. part i

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be a long disclaimer. I was going to talk about many many many things including my reasons for writing this fic, what I’m trying to comment on, what I was inspired by, et cetera. However, I started writing this about five months ago. A lot’s changed since then. For now I’m going to leave you with three points.  
>  **Point One:** I am in absolutely no way trying to say anything about the real lives of these real people. This started out as a writing exercise and I have treated it that way since. They are absolutely free to live their lives however they want and whether or not it lines up with/departs from the events in this fic has no bearing here.  
>  **Point Two:** This fic deals with a lot of not-so-light things. Almost all of them I have personal experience with. Everything I didn’t personally experience, I have someone close to me who did. Everything is also as well-researched as it could be without me bogging down my prose with wikipedia entries. That being said, if I have in any way misrepresented a certain struggle or experience, feel free to let me know.  
>  Finally, **Point Three:** the ships in this fic are the ships in this fic. Not to take us all back to 2012 right here but if you don’t like it, don’t read it. Simple as that. This fic focuses on three main relationships. Two are romantic, one is mostly platonic. The tags have made it clear which are which. If you’re not happy with it, fine. Go spend five months writing your own fic. That’s what I did with this one. This content wasn’t made for mass-consumption (believe me, I know I’m writing for a select few), there’s no reason to treat it as such.
> 
> The playlist for this fic can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/readingqueen811/playlist/7L50BDkfX5l9UOSgKAecEW). Since each section corresponds to a specific song, I’d definitely recommend giving it a listen. Fic trailer is [here](https://youtu.be/S__wXufvYws).  
> Also, one last thing: Names are weird. It’s even weirder when everyone has like four. I chose what felt right when writing specific characters. If it bugs you you certainly don’t have to read it.

part i

_one word from you and i would / jump off of this ledge i’m on baby_

first love / late spring - mitski

**___________________________________**

The air after an awards show always seems to have a bit of a perfume smell to it. It’s a mix of everything: the performers themselves, the fragrant plastic flowers littering the tables at the after party, and everything else that’s almost real, but not quite.

 **Solar** , to her credit, has never enjoyed after parties all that much. It’s the small company thing, she supposes. Mamamoo can’t gravitate towards other people from their agency the way the idols from the big three companies can when they’re the first to be invited to things like this. They’re trailblazers, in a way. But it’s lonely.

It doesn’t help that, despite the way they behave onstage and around their friends, the four of them are quite shy in crowds. What they do, usually, is camp out at a table by the food, grab a round of drinks, and sit and laugh together.

She supposes it might make them seem cold. Or elitist, maybe. A loud, broad shout to the world that they exist on a level above the other performers there. Of course, they don’t, and anyone who takes the time to get to know them would know that, but still, she worries about it. No one’s going to come out with an article any time soon about Mamamoo being too friendly with each other or RBW being too small of a company, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t always have second thoughts about what she does.

This time, though, Hwasa got swept up into a once-in-a-while conversation with Zico and his group and Wheein got distracted by the photobooth, stole Byul’s jacket, and pulled her into it with her. So, Solar’s left sitting alone at their table, the same one they’d sat at last year, people-watching and feeling very much like she used to in her first year at university. Everyone else seems to have somewhere better to be today.

She scans the room. Red Velvet is in the corner with all the other SM people. She’d walk over there, normally, but some of the older idols in the group are still so intimidating to her, even after years of going to parties with them. When she looks at them, she sees her younger self, sitting on the bus listening to their music, not who she is now. F(x) is in that group, too, and she bows her head politely at them when she accidentally awkwardly makes eye contact. Amber waves a little bit. Solar manages a shy wave back.

Amber nudges the person next to her, and, from behind a cluster of people Solar only halfway recognizes, she sees Eric turn around - as sociable with everyone as always. He smiles when he sees her, and she can’t help but smile back.

He doesn’t gesture her to come forward, thankfully, but instead pulls away from the group he was talking to and begins walking over to her. Solar immediately finds herself staring at her drink, unable to look up at him for the fear that she’ll blush and someone will _see_. It shouldn’t matter, really, because everyone knows they’re friends, but there’s that kiss from a few months ago to think about and that Mamamoo dating rumor and just the fact that every time she sees him it’s like the sun comes out.

Eric sits down next to her, and his arm finds the back of her chair. If she leans back, they’d almost be touching. “Congratulations on your award,” he begins, and the front curl of his hair is falling into his eyes. “You should be celebrating.”

“I _am_ celebrating,” Solar assures him, even though she’s obviously not. “See,” she motions to her drink. “Celebrating.”

“Mmhmm,” he nods, very seriously. She’s glad he’s playing along with her. “Can I celebrate with you?” Eric clinks his glass into hers. 

“Go ahead,” she says. “I could use a celebration buddy.”

Eric’s smile is teasing. “Ah, so I’ve been downgraded. Ex-husband to celebration buddy. I’ll have to complain to the press now, you know.”

“Ah yes,” Solar suddenly remembers the reason she’s been hiding out here in the corner. “So much press here today. Go talk to that lady in the pink hat. She’s _dying_ to know exactly what we are to each other.”

Eric frowns. “Did she talk to you?”

Solar closes her eyes, trying to push away the memory. Her head feels weird. She probably shouldn’t be drinking, but it’s too late for regrets now. “Earlier,” she says. “Before the ceremony.”

She watches his eyes flicker over to the woman in the pink hat, and grabs his shoulder more out of fear that he’ll draw her attention than anything else. Eric immediately turns back towards her. He raises an eyebrow at the action, but he’s gone back to smiling, so she supposes the skinship was worth it.

“How are things?” Solar asks, changing the subject. “With your company, I mean. Are they still…”

“I’m scheduled for another variety show next week,” he says, and that’s all the answer she needs. “That’ll be three in one week. My comeback was supposed to be in two months, but now- Now I’m not sure. Amber says she knows someone, though, who might be able to help me get what I want. That’s what I was just talking to her about.”

Solar looks over at Amber, who smiles at the two of them and makes some sort of gesture she doesn’t really understand. This time, Eric’s the one to look down at the table.

She squeezes his shoulder. “It’ll work out,” she says, even though she’s not quite sure if it will. “You’ll figure it out, somehow. You always do.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Solar sees a familiar face. Her heart immediately stops cold. She puts her drink down on the table a little shakily only for every muscle in her arm to tense up as soon as she lets go. “Give me a second,” she tells Eric.

She doesn’t know how he got a press badge. Or clearance for this party, even. To be fair, she’s not sure about much about him, only that, in the past few years, this has become a kind of constant thing. Once a year, or once every eight months or something like that, he’ll show up in the same place as her. It’s not quite often enough for her to consider it stalking, but it makes her blood feel thin.

Solar’s not walking towards him, really, but he notices her looking at him and begins walking her way, which immediately makes her turn to the side of the room where the bathroom is, and the stairs that lead up to the rooftop. As always, he follows her.

“Yongsunnie!” he announces, as if they _ever_ were close enough for him to call her that. Solar keeps moving towards the bathroom, pretending she didn’t hear him. At first she’d wanted to talk to him, call him out in the way she’s never been able to, the way Byul called out that one guy two years ago, but now all she wants to do is run away and hide. He always makes her feel that way.

He tries again. “Kim Yongsun!”

She reaches for the bathroom handle and accidentally grabs the stair railing instead, jarred by his voice. In her confusion, he manages to catch up to her. His smile reminds her of a shark. “It’s been a long time,” he says.

Solar nods, and bows politely, but her hand grips the railing a little tighter with the action. “Yes, hello,” she says. The corners of his mouth stretch wide. 

“Come on, Yongsunnie,” he chides, and she grits her teeth at the nickname. “Don’t be like that. How are you? How are _things_? We should really catch up again, sometime. Maybe see if we’ve still got that _spark._ ” He spits a little bit on the last word. It takes everything in her not to wince.

“You broke up with me,” Solar reminds him, as gently as she can. “And I’m sorry. Just like last time, I’m really not interested in dating-”

“Right now. Yeah, I know, I know. But do you want to know what else I know, Yongsunnie?” He moves a hand towards the railing, and her hand slides further up, trying to keep him from touching her. He blocks the entrance to the stairwell. She backs two steps up. “Rumor has it,” he whispers. “That there’s a secret in Mamamoo. And don’t think I didn’t see you with Eric Nam earlier. I know you’re lying about something.”

Solar bites her lip to keep her from spitting out what she really wants to tell him, which is that he should leave her alone and go do _something else_ with his hand. Something she wouldn’t be allowed to say on television. “I was going to say, like I’ve said so many times before, that I’m not interesting in dating _you_.”

“You mean you don’t have _even one_ soft spot for a guy who loved - no, still loves - you? You should be more careful, Yongsunnie; I know things that could destroy you.”

Solar lets out a shaky breath. “Pictures of my bare face could hardly ‘destroy me.’ And, if you haven’t noticed, Mamamoo doesn’t care all that much about how silly we seem.”

“But I love you, _Solar._ ” She hates the way he’s grinning, like the words are just a game.“Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Or are you above me now? Has fame changed you that much? Maybe I should remind you that there was no need for you to hide from the press when _we_ were together two summers ago. Eric Nam can’t offer you _that_ , can he?”

Her heartbeat is fast and strong, pulsing with long pent up words and phrases that all sound a little like _did you ever love me_ and she has to fight to keep it all from spilling out of her mouth and onto the floor like her tea that morning. She’s never been one to hold grudges, but he tests that part of her every time he so much as breathes.

He steps closer and she wishes he wouldn’t. As if her wishes have ever done anything to stop him. As if she’s anything more than an eggshell in the face of a storm, letting his breath push away her every inhibition like wind does for those crumbling monuments in the hills. The string of lights above them seem so bright it hurts and yet his shadow is still too dark to see out of.

Her pulse changes. _You didn’t love me,_ she decides. _Not until I changed._

His closeness makes the hairs on her arm stand up. It feels foreign. All of this. She remembers every touch, but not totally. The girl he loved is someone she’s not sure she can conjure up again. She’s dead, or changed, or something. And she wasn’t even the one he truly loved, if she can even believe his claims of love. He loves the girl he sees on his television, with light, long hair and knee socks and a smile like she has a secret.

That girl doesn’t exist. All that exists is all that always did. And she knows the second she laughs at something he’ll be long gone again. So that’s what she does; she laughs.

He’s drawn aback by it, she can tell. Everything recoils in an instant. “You don’t love me,” she tells him, and they both know she’s right.

Solar grips the railing a little tighter then. Her balance returns to her, suddenly, in a rush of time and space and distance. They’re strangers on a train, glancing briefly before moving on. This is that part, the moving on part, the part when she walks away from him. 

He’s still blocking the stairway. She’s still scared she’ll fall apart if she touches him. She compromises with a turn and goes up instead. Up, up, and away. Like a balloon, floating to the top of that museum when she was a girl. Like letting go.

He doesn’t follow her, and she’s struck with the sudden hope that he can’t. That her words have enacted some invisible barrier that will keep him from finding her again, from accosting her with the same words again and again. From making her feel like she’s the one with reason to be guilty, the way she had for so many nights after him, blaming herself for her values and her dreams and not at all thinking that maybe she should’ve read more into the fact that he never wanted to eat alone with her.

The roof is cold. She wonders if she’ll freeze up here. Just turn to ice and break apart the next morning, when someone comes to clean up. Shatter and float and turn into stars. Disappear. Dissipate. Something like that. 

Being alone always does this to her. Being alone and being still. She wants to move, wants to do something, but she can’t. There’s nothing to do up here except breathe and be alone with her thoughts. And she’s even having trouble doing the first part of that. Being alone reminds her of being twenty one, of breaking down after another failed audition. It reminds her of late, solitary nights in a practice room trying to get the choreography right just once. Loneliness and failure always have gone hand in hand for her.

It’s not that she feels she’s failed now - she knows she did the right thing, walking away - but that she will any second. He was right in that one aspect. He’s the safer option, from a public point of view. From a private one, though, she’s not sure she could handle being in the same room with him again. Or up here. On the roof.

Solar shivers. Glad once again that he didn’t follow.

Her phone buzzes, from where it sits in the hidden pocket of her dress. She pulls it out quickly, feeling shaken out of her thoughts. 

_Where’d you disappear to?_ Eric asks.

Solar finds it in her to respond. She needs someone here, she knows that. Being alone for much longer will drive her crazy. _The roof,_ she tells him. _I needed air._

 _Okay,_ Eric says. _I’m coming up._

______________________________________

 **Eric** finds her on the roof. The edge of it. Right up against the metal gate he suspects might’ve been put there to keep less-than-sober idols from falling off of the building. The company hosting this probably doesn’t need that kind of paperwork to deal with right now.

It’s funny, how cynical he’s become through all of this. Maybe it’s the past few months in him, talking from a frustrating, suffocating experience. He’s begun to doubt that they’re much more to their respective companies than pretty things that make money. It makes him feel less like a person and more like a statue. Like the origin of the word _idol._

Either way, whoever set this roof up will be glad at least two people were feeling claustrophobic enough to see their decorations. Fairy lights line the black fence, and there’s a table a few feet away with plastic chairs and an umbrella that must’ve been a little too small to keep the seats from getting wet. Well, maybe more than two people. He’s pretty sure he saw Kai and Krystal sneak up here earlier. 

No one is here anymore, though. No one but him and Solar and whatever cloud is hanging over her head that wasn’t there before. Eric can’t see her face, just the back of her head, but he can see the tense muscles in her shoulders through the sheer fabric of her black dress and how her knees have locked despite her wearing heels. 

That’s one thing they tell you when you become a singer. Don’t, under any circumstances, lock your knees while you’re standing there and singing. You could lose blood flow. You could pass out. You could accidentally cost the company a whole day of work. Important things like that. Eric wonders if Solar knows she’s doing it.

“Yongsun-ah,” he starts, moving to stand next to her, leaning on the rail of the fence. He knocks one of the fairy lights with the knee of his dress pants. “What happened?”

“I can’t breathe,” Solar says. When she bites her lip, he sees the tears in her eyes. Her hands are tight on the metal barrier between them and the air, like maybe it’ll disintegrate if she squeezes hard enough. She coughs, as if she’s just realized what she let slip, and then she corrects her statement. “I couldn’t breathe- I mean. It was too stuffy. I needed some air.”

Eric wants to reach out, tuck her hair behind her ear, and tell her that everything is going to be okay, but he knows it might not be, and he can’t lie to her. He keeps his hand by his side instead, and tightens his jaw. _She needs space_ , he tells himself. _She needs air._

She looks towards him, then, and he’s scared he’ll see the first tear fall. She steps forward, taking a hand off the rail, and kind of nestles her head in his chest. “Tell me something good,” Solar whispers, almost like she’s hoping he won’t hear. He does, though, and finally lets his hand find her hair. 

“Okay,” Eric starts. “Something good… Well, you see, there’s this girl, and, for some reason, she keeps saying yes when I ask her out, despite the fact that she’s like light years out of my league and has a smile that could save the world and-”

That gets a smile out of her, at the very least. An exasperated, tired, one, but a smile nonetheless. It also gets him a knock on the shoulder, which causes him to stop and just look down at her, marveling at how much of the world he can see in her eyes alone. There’s stars above them and wind all around them and people with cameras they’re going to have to dodge when they go back downstairs, but the moment still feels kind of perfect.

And he hasn’t been waiting for it, not really, but suddenly it’s there, in front of him, begging him to reach out and grab it. As if clouds were not water droplets, but feelings. As if her words from the flight before Jeju Island were fact and not fable. As if he can reach out, catch the cotton candy clouds, and put them in his mouth.

The words taste a little bit like what he thinks the clouds would. They’re soft and fluffy and impossibly light on his tongue, but quickly dissolving. 

“I’m glad I have you,” she murmurs into his chest, which is close enough to a confession on her side. “I don’t know how, but you’re keeping my thoughts from just flying away. Like this-” she makes a whooshing sound, hand flying up into the air in a small imitation of a bird. 

“I’m glad I have you too,” he replies, not quite the words he’s looking for, but leading up to it. If there’s one thing he knows about Solar, it’s that things need to build. Even when he’s filled with the urge to just grab her hand jump off this cliff they’re on together. “You make me feel like everything’s going right.”

She shakes her head, still pressed into him. He’s fairly sure he’ll have to fix her hair before they go back down. “I wish I could fix everything for you. The way you fix things for me. Then maybe I’d feel a little less indebted.”

“You don’t need to fix anything,” he says, even though he too wishes, somewhere deep down inside, that she could just wave a magic wand and his company would let him produce the music he wants. “I already love you just the way you are.”

Solar freezes then, under his touch. He thinks they were an accident, the words. He’s not sure, though, because they’re true, and he’s been thinking it all along. He messed it up, though. The three words aren’t even all right next to each other and she obviously wasn’t ready to hear it and _they’re a mess_.

She looks up. Eric looks back at her. It’s silent for a few moments. Somewhere, a few blocks away, a police siren rings.

“Oh,” Solar says, and that about sums up how he’s feeling too. She’s still stuck frozen. “Oh, um-”

“That was an accident,” Eric blurts out. “I’m not going to apologise for it because I don’t regret it but, like, it was an accident. I didn’t plan to tell you like…” he gestures to the roof and the wind and the billboard across the street that says something along the lines of _Visit Our Beautiful Hotel! Paradise!_ “Like this.”

The party is fading downstairs. He can hear it go. People are beginning to trickle out on the street below. Not all at once yet, but the beginning of the end of it is coming. Eric guesses they have an hour left, give or take a few minutes. One hour left and he’s already messed it up.

“No,” Solar assures him, but she doesn’t seem convinced herself. “It’s fine. I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all. I mean… This is awkward now, isn’t it?”

Eric nods his head. “Yeah, a little bit.”

He’s not expecting her to say it back. If he was, he probably would’ve thought about it a little more, like he usually does with things he wants to be a two way street. And, really, she probably already knew. It’s not like he’s been that secretive about his feelings even since they first started filming We Got Married together.

What he’s really not expecting, though, is for her to start singing. Which is exactly what she does. Her latest cover in her _Solar’s Emotions_ series floats across the rooftop, swirling around and coming back in the wind. By the time she gets to the chorus of it, Eric’s joined in, because that’s what they do when things get awkward between them. They just make things weirder and weirder until whatever weird came before feels normal again.

“I meant what I said, though,” Solar says, when they finish singing. “I wish I could fix things for you.”

Eric smiles, and looks down at someone, possibly the youngest member of that new boy group, get into a black SUV. “I know. But neither of us can, right now. We can just hope for the best.”

“Yeah,” Solar agrees. “Hope is a good thing.”

______________________________________

Somewhere between the photobooth and the dance floor, **Byul** lost Wheein.

Well, she didn’t really lose her. All she knows is that she sat down for a second, at their usual table - Solar having gone missing as well - and Wheein said “hold on a second, I’ll be right back” and then she didn’t come back. 

Byul started with finishing her drink, and then when that was done she emptied her pockets on the table and that led to doodling with a tiny pencil she found in the left pocket of her dress pants and that led, eventually, to writing. She always seems to be doing that. Her phone is filled with notes, little things for later, when she’ll actually have time to sit down in front of a piano and write lyrics and rap and everything.

After a few minutes spent doing that, Byul stands up and decides she should go look for her members. People are beginning to leave, and she doesn’t want to be standing out by the car for half an hour waiting for them. Besides, all of her other friends have left already. And she has some lyrics she wants to run by Solar.

She wanders first through the main room, past the bar and through the dance floor. She scans the line for the bathroom, doesn’t see any of them, and so proceeds to check the back patio. Someone is kissing someone else in the shadows. Byul wants to tell them to just go check in at the hotel next door, but doesn’t. They can get caught by someone with a camera on their own time.

She’s about to turn around and go check the roof when she runs into Solar by one of the small caged bonfires they put out to make the cold night a little warmer. She’s sitting on the bench next to it, looking at her phone with a quiet smile on her face.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Byul says, as she sits down beside her. “Do you know where everyone else is?”

Solar looks up from her phone. She smiles when she sees her. “I have no idea. I saw Hyejin earlier, though. She mentioned something about the DJ booth, so she might be there.”

“Wheein?”

She shakes her head. “Haven’t seen her.”

Byul goes through her mental checklist of places again and realizes she forgot to check the photobooth. “We can look for her later,” she says. She pulls out her list of lyrics and looks them over. Now that she thinks about it, these probably won’t make it to an album, but she’d like Solar to look over them anyways. Wishful thinking, mostly. “Where have you been?”

Solar smiles again. “On the roof. With Yoondo.”

“And?” Byul asks, sensing that there’s something more.

“He told me he loves me.”

There’s a split second there where every rational thought in her brain just turns off and, instead of speaking like she’s supposed to, Byul takes the napkin in her hand and shoves it at the bonfire, letting go at the last possible second. Her thoughts smell like smoke.

Because the fact is, the truth of everything sits in the back of her throat and molds itself to the shape of her mouth. It’s sticky in the firmest sense of the word. She looks at her, and, if she squints, she sees something real. And then she blinks. And then it’s over.

She watches the paper, the song she’d shoved into the flames, disintegrate, watches every last lyric get lost to the ages, and thinks it might be for the best. _You don’t love me_ is a truth she’s known for a while and yet she hadn’t really fully known it until this moment. This moment here where watching the fire is easier than looking her in the eyes. Where her nails dig into her palm, because she’s scared if she lets go of her other hand Solar too will disintegrate in the flames.

They’re more than this. This, this thing that everyone created. At least, they should be. She feels like they should be, but right now she’s not quite sure where friendship ends and that something else begins. She’s afraid if she tries to do away with one she’ll end up losing both. And that might be too much to handle.

There are other things she’s scared of too. How lonely she feels, despite being so close to Solar in this moment. How increasingly aware she’s becoming of that isolation that’s been creeping up on her for years now. How pushing everyone but her away has done things to her that are probably not the best. It’s like addiction, she supposes, but milder than that. Like how sometimes, if she doesn’t have coffee, her head starts aching, her body not used to living without that kind of rush.

Solar herself gives off a level of rush. Even now, even when she’s looking down at her with sad, confused eyes. Like sugar, she thinks. Or maybe sunlight. Or something along those lines. She grabs her wrist, a little too late to stop the song that disappeared into the flames less than a minute ago, like she’s still a step behind Byul. Like maybe she’s still a step behind with everything having to do with this.

Byul hesitates, heart stopping in a way that’s not quite skipping a beat, but more similar to freezing. Like closing her out. Like closing the door on her. Like doing what she wants to do right now which is tell her she needs a moment.

“Okay,” she says, because it’s the only word that comes into her mind. She’s still trying to process. She’d known it was a thing, somewhere, subconsciously. She figured it would happen eventually, because they’d been _meeting_ , and _talking_ and _she’s so stupid._

Some part of her - the guilty part - had dared to hope that it would pass. That the magic of the show or the trip or whatever it was that kep them spinning closer and closer to each other would ware off with time, and Solar would come back, a little bruised but overall fine, and it would be just the four of them again. How it’s always been. How it should be.

That part of her is also the selfish part. The part that wants things that can’t exist beyond the stage. The part of her that knows, deep down, that she’s bought into the fantasy of her own creation, like a goddamn first love story or something. Except she’s not her first love, and she really thought she’d known better than to fall into this and everything hurts a lot right now.

“Okay,” she says again, wrapping her brain around the idea. “Is it going to be a problem?”

Solar is taken aback. She can tell that much by the way she looks at her. “Is… is it? _What?_ ”

Somehow, she manages to level her voice into a type of icy coolness. “Is it going to be a problem? Are you going to get caught by Dispatch at his house or kiss him on television or something equally dumb that could hurt all of us?” She hates how condescending she sounds, but she can’t help it. When she wants to turn her feelings off, she goes into logical mode, and Logical Byul can only see all the ways this could go terribly, horribly wrong.

“I mean,” Solar starts. She’s quiet. Byul wonders if she thought about any of these things before rushing into this like this, and then she hates herself for thinking that, because a year of halfway dating is barely _rushing_. It just feels that way, from this end. “I don’t think so.”

She’s overcome with an urge to dive her hands into the fire, then, to show her the lyrics written on that napkin, but it’s already long-eaten by flame, and she knows it probably wouldn’t change anything. _You don’t love me_ , she thinks again, and that hurts about the same amount as the fire would. “Okay.”

“Okay?” she asks, like she’d expected her to have a different reaction to the whole thing.

 _You don’t love me._ She misses her suit jacket, suddenly. Byul looks around for Wheein, but she’s nowhere to be found. _You love him. And he loves you._

“That’s all I needed to know. That it isn’t going to be a problem.” No, the problem is what lies deep inside of her, lurking like a sleeping serpent, ready to strike and ruin everything at any moment.

That’s what she’s really scared of - not Solar getting caught up in her happiness and accidentally shouting her secret to the world - but the other secret, the one she’s only ever admitted to one other person before in her life. The one that would really truly ruin all of them. 

“I’m going to go find Wheein,” Byul announces, more to everyone else on the patio than to Solar.

“But you said-”

“She has my jacket.” Solar doesn’t fight her when she pulls her wrist out of her grasp. “And we really should be leaving soon, anyways.”

She doesn’t really know where she’s going when she leaves. Byul barrels through the crowd, looking for dark hair and bangs and her jacket. She turns the corner to the bathroom and accidentally crashes into another woman. She’s got glasses.

They both reach down at the same time, but the other woman gets to the pink hat that had fallen off her head when they’d run into each other first. 

“I’m so sorry,” Byul says, bowing in apology. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

The woman puts the pink hat back on her head. “It’s alright,” she responds. “You can make it up to me.” It’s then that she sees the blue and white press badge hanging from her neck. “Can you comment on your member, Solar, and her relationship with Eric Nam?”

“I can comment.” Her voice is a little sharper than intended. “Solar’s personal life is _hers_. There’s your comment.”

The woman in the pink hat doesn’t seem upset by her outburst, more amused. “You should be careful with you tone,” she says, waving a finger at her. “You never know who you’re talking to.”

Byul nods, but is suddenly on edge. “I’ll remember that,” she assures her, and then bows once again. “Goodbye.”

She finds Wheein in the photobooth half asleep, using her jacket as a pillow.

______________________________________

 **Wheein** ’s always loved the way Seoul looks at night. Especially when they’re driving through it in the SUV, in the later moments when everyone’s asleep or nearly there. It’s pretty in a modern way, like the sleek design of her phone or the spare computer casing Byul used to keep around when they were still living together.

The party knocked most of them out. Solar was the first to go, falling asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow propped against her window. Wheein guesses it was the alcohol. Hyejin went next, putting on her music and just shutting down. 

Wheein can’t sleep, though, because her best friend is blasting Rihanna so loud that it can’t be contained by her headphones. Also, she’d slept a bit at the party.

Byul had given her a lecture on that, on the dangers of being passed out at a party full of older idols. Wheein knows all of that already, and it’s not like she trusted the people around her, but she’d been eyeing the photo booth for a while and no one besides her seemed to really be using it anyways.

Now it’s just the two of them and their manager who are awake. They don’t talk, just lay back in their seats. Wheein watches the skyline of Seoul go by outside her window. She thinks about the first time she saw the city like this, after one of those early auditions. It all seems so far away now.

Byul is looking out the window too, but her thoughts seem a lot less pleasant. Wheein knows that look on her face. It’s the look she gets when she’s drowning herself in her thoughts and worries. There’s so much that goes through their heads, so much that they never tell her about. Moonbyul and Solar. Friends so far above her and Hyejin, with concerns that they barely even think about.

She nudges her shoulder. “What are you thinking?” she asks, even though she knows she won’t tell her.

Byul doesn’t look away from the window. She’s only across the car but she might as well be across the ocean. “You don’t need to worry about it,” she says, because of course she does. Of course there’s nothing Wheein _needs_ to worry about, but she’d do it. She’d take some of that worry onto her own back if it would make things easier for the two of them.

As it stands right now, she’s only an observer. A little girl with her face pressed up to the glass at the aquarium, yearning desperately to know if the fish feel the same kind of fear that she does. “What if I _am_ worrying, though?” she asks, despite her better instincts. Her voice is quiet as so not to wake their sleeping friends, but what she really wants to do is to shout the words, let her know that she _is_ worried, has been for a while. 

Byul looks back at Solar, head tilted back, eyes closed, rainbow rice cake blanket wrapped around her. Wheen’s eyes follow. It’s not an answer, really, but it’s close. It’s another item on a list of suspicions, another question to ask when the time is right (which it never is), another thing to file away in the back of her mind under _reasons why you shouldn’t feel what you do._

When she bites her lip with worry, Wheein’s eyes follow the movement. “I suppose I can’t stop you then,” Byul says, and sounds so incredibly defeated. Wheein can’t help but wonder what great battle she must have lost today, what fatal blow made her this tired. “I suppose I can’t stop any of you.”

“You could just tell me what’s bothering you, Byulyi. It doesn’t have to be about stopping anyone.” Worry has a weird cycle. It winds its way through her body, knows her like an old friend, and then it changes to frustration with a pump of her lungs. 

Byul yawns. Her breath fogs up the car window. “I’ll tell you, one day,” she promises. “But just… not right now.”

Wheein feels like she’s eleven again, and being told that she’s still not quite tall enough to go on a rollercoaster. As far as she knows, there’s nothing that she’s done to make Byul think she wouldn’t be able to handle knowing about whatever it is she’s worrying about. At least, she doesn’t think there is.

There could’ve been the freak out she had on their trip together. Maybe Byul didn’t understand that that was about her grandmother and not about the ramyeon. Or her failure on Happy Together. Or something. Wheein counts her failures, lines them up all in a row, and puzzles over what it was she did that made them keep her out of the loop.

“Whatever,” she mumbles, turning away from Byul, onto her side. She closes her eyes and tries to picture sheep but only thinks of the incomplete songs she can’t quite seem to finish. Maybe that’s what she failed. “We’re allowed to get older, though, you know. We’re allowed to grow.”

She doesn’t look to see Byul’s reaction, but hears her voice. “It’s not about getting older. It’s not about anything. Just forget it. Okay? I’ll be fine in the morning.”

Wheein puts in her own headphones. Moon and Sunrise comes on. She lets BOA’s voice drift over her for a minute before wondering if Byul and Solar know just how sad of a song this is. She wonders if they recognize the irony in naming their unit group after it. She finds herself humming along anyways, though, because it _is_ a good song, and she’s too tired to pick apart meanings right now.

 _Hmm,_ Wheein thinks, looking at the city again. _Seoul knows how old I am. It knows all I can handle._

Hyejin knows too, but she’s asleep, so she doesn’t count. Besides, they already tell each other everything. There’s no need to ask why she’d ever keep anything from her when she never does.

She’s asleep by the time the next song starts.

______________________________________

 **Eric** doesn’t think too much about the rooftop afterwards.

Well, he does, but his thoughts are crammed into the corners of his busy schedule. He thinks about it in the car on the way to a promotion event, and then again during his lunch break the next day, when the wind outside is blowing especially loudly. He remembers his botched confession and accidentally drops a forkful of rice onto the ground, but, hey, at least it wasn’t the whole bowl.

The person he’s meeting with gives him a curious look. She’s an advisor, of sorts, or at least that’s how Amber described her. Part agent part lawyer part hellraiser. He’s not sure exactly what she can do to help him - she’s mostly been vague on that subject - but he trusts Amber’s recommendation, and, frankly, he’s getting a little desperate.

This is the second agency so far. The second not-quite-disaster. Eric has never really thought that his wish to create the music he wants was too much to ask. Now, though, it seems like it might be. He wants to grow, and change, and he wants his music to do the same. He wants real lyrics about real things, challenging things. 

“What is it you want from me, Mr. Nam?” the woman asks, and he has to confess that he doesn’t really know. It’s not that he wants an escape from his agency, really, because he’s been through that before and it’s a mess of paperwork and hard feelings. He doesn’t want a scandal, either. He’s never been been the type to throw a temper tantrum about not getting what he wants. 

“I guess,” Eric answers. “At the end of the day, I want them to respect me and respect my music. I want to be seen as a-”

“As a person and not an idol?” she guesses, and there’s too much amusement behind her eyes for his liking. “Are you quite sure you’re familiar with the industry you’re in? That’s quite a big thing to ask.”

Eric sighs. “It doesn’t feel like it should be, though. Do you know what I mean? Basic human decency shouldn’t be such a hard thing to obtain.”

The woman nods, wistful. She reminds him a little of this one sea lion he’d seen the last time he went to the pier in San Diego. It had been fairly old and weak, hobbling along the rocks by the wooden walkway, looking longingly at the ocean. It’s not so much that she seems old and feeble, so much as it seems that she too, despite her very scary aura, is longing for the same thing he is. Eric wonders if maybe she was an idol once, too.

“You have a few options, however,” the woman circles the few things she’d written in her yellow spiral notebook earlier. “I’d like you to finish eating your rice, think them over, and get back to me on it. Unfortunately, I cannot promise you basic human decency. Something a little milder, however, is definitely possible.” Her purple lips turn up into a smirk, laughing at her own quip about the unfortunate state of humanity.

Eric swallows his food. A lump still remains in his throat. “Okay,” he says. What else can he say, really?

She slides her business card across the table. It’s white, with shiny silver detailing. The details aren’t quite visible in the sunlight. He supposes they get more clear as it gets darker. Maybe the card is a quip too. She seems to find a lot of humor in the darkness she deals with.

Afterwards, when he still has six minutes left of his lunch break before he has to go film his cameo for that one new variety show that’s been shoved his way, Eric thinks about the roof again. 

Something hadn’t been right, he knows that much. Not just the timing, but Solar’s mood. Something hadn’t been right and he hadn’t asked about it. Moments like that always are so much clearer in the aftermath, without the wind blowing in his ears and the heart-stopping sight of her looking out over the city in sadness.

And he probably pushed it on her too soon too. He doesn’t mind that she didn’t say it back, but he minds her reaction. There’s a thought in the back of his mind that it might’ve been too much too fast since everything’s still not quite defined yet. 

They exist together mostly in moments. A kiss in his kitchen. A caption with a capital letter. A joke about coping together at a bad party. There hasn’t really been time for definitions of it. Yet, there he went, trying to define whatever _it_ is all on his own.

Eric watches the people on the street. He wants to ask what they’d do in his position. They probably would be just as bewildered as he is.

He digs through the pockets of his jacket and finds something. A ring he’d thought he lost. On one hand, it’s a reminder of the recent past, of what he’s gained and lost in the past year. Also of a show that one can probably very easily argue is a little convoluted. On the other hand, it also feels a little like a second chance at something.

 _Hey,_ he texts Solar, right as his car is pulling up to the restaurant. _Can we meet up later?_

 _How about 8?_ she responds. So they do.

She waits for him in the parking structure of his company’s building, wearing dark jeans and a grey sweater that’s beginning to unravel. It’s almost fitting, he thinks, to have the company building tower over them as they talk. Almost makes him want to ask her if she’s read _1984._

Eric walks up to her with his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie. He greets her, smiling, and the lump in his throat lessens a bit when she smiles back at him. 

“How did your meeting go?” Solar asks him.

Eric thinks about the joke the woman had made earlier, about basic human decency and the world lacking it. He thinks maybe she’d change her mind if she met Solar. “Okay, I think,” he tells her, because it’s the truth and the truth is easy around her.

She comes to stand beside him, nudging his elbow with hers as they lean against the concrete wall of the parking structure together. “That’s good. What did you want to talk about?”

He makes a face at her. “Who said I wanted to talk about anything? Maybe I just wanted to see you.”

Solar wrinkles her nose. “If you wanted to see me, you would’ve just video chatted with me. You always ask to meet up in person whenever you want to talk.”

Eric finds himself smiling again. She knows him, even in ways he doesn’t know himself. “Well,” he starts, and then realizes maybe it would be better expressed in action.

He pulls something out of his pocket and traces the metal with his thumb, trying not to think too hard about what he’s about to do. He knows if he thinks about it too hard it’ll seem just as crazy as it is. Because it is. Crazy. Even a little more so than his original urge, which was to grab her hand and one of the cars around them and just drive as far as they possibly could before someone stopped them.

Eric opens his palm, searching her eyes for any signs of the fear he’s afraid of. “I want you to have this,” he says. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. Nothing big. Just you and me. That we’re in this together. And if you don’t need a ring or a necklace or anything for that then you can give it back.”

Her mouth is open. Breathing steady. That’s a good sign, he supposes. She’s not quite suffocating yet. He’s not quite scared her away just yet. When she’s finished processing his words, she laughs, like she had when he’d given her a ring the first time. He knows that’s not an answer, though. Just a reaction. Just her recognizing that whatever’s happening is real. 

His ears feel hot. He’s probably blushing. That’s okay, though. If any time would be a good time to blush it would be now. “I know I was a little too forward about it last time. Which, I’m probably always going to be. But just know, you can always tell me no, okay? Like, you can take the ring and have it not mean anything. Or it can mean everything. Just… It’s your call.”

“My call?” she asks, and her fingers reach for the ring only to pull away at the last second. By thee way she’s reacting to it, he half expects to find her fingers pass through it on her next attempt. “But don’t your feelings matter too?”

Eric shrugs, trying not to think about self-sacrifice and his job and how Solar’s always there next to him, with the same selfless habits, thinking about his feelings just as much as he thinks about hers. He wonders how she could’ve not known he loved her when they love in the same type of way. “You know my feelings,” he reminds her. “That’s all that matters. I don’t want to push something on you if you don’t want it.”

She swallows. “I want it. A few of her fingers play a soft little rhythm on the wall behind them. He’s looking at her and she’s looking at the ground and her face is a little red too. Eric is glad to know he’s not the only one.

He makes a joke then, or at least he tries to. Something about them doing this in the wrong order. Solar laughs, and while she’s laughing she reaches for the ring again. Her fingers don’t go through, but land solidly there, tangle in the small silver chain he’s attached to it so she can wear it around her neck. He’s real. She’s real. This is real.

“Just so we’re clear though,” Eric says, “I’m not like proposing again or anything.”

Solar hits him with the hand that isn’t holding the ring. Somehow, the shadow of the building seems a little less cold. “You just _love me_ ,” she sings. It takes Eric too long to realize she’s teasing him for his confession.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah, I do.”

______________________________________

 **Solar** lets him drive her home. They sing along to the radio together. He drops her off when it’s nearly midnight and she’s tempted to kiss him again, still remembers the way he tastes, but doesn’t. The ring-necklace bounces on her chest as she walks away.

The hallway into her apartment is both familiar and brand new. Something smells like mold, and something else smells like honey - maybe someone’s cooking - and everything sounds dead quiet, but not in the bad way. In the good way, the anticipation way. 

She unlocks her door, pushing it wide open with her backpack. It swings easily. She hits the light switch and her living room fills with light. _Yeah_ , she thinks, _me too._ The imagery thing is because she’s a songwriter, she supposes. She connects too much to light and color and the sound of the car driving to an event when her head is pressed up onto the glass of the window and she’s supposed to be sleeping.

Right now, though, it’s the light. Walking into it. Setting her bag down on her kitchen table with a thud and recognizing the scent of home. Solar smiles, and she’s not sure why. She pulls out her phone.

She can’t tell what exactly this feeling in her chest is. All she knows is that it spirals around like a kitten chasing its tail. It’s excited and circular somehow weird - because everything is kind of _weird_ when it comes to him. 

It doesn’t feel permanent, not like his words - because it’s an aftereffect of those. His words that sent her down this spiral in the first place. That were every bit of his laugh and his smile and his “we’re totally doing this in the wrong order.” She feels a mile high and slowly sinking at the same time. 

Solar fingers the necklace, lets her thumb trace the curves of the hexagonal ring in the center, and fails at not smiling.

 _Come over tomorrow,_ she texts him.

 _I can’t :(. I have a schedule._ Of course he does. Of course they both do. Of course they only get like one perfect moment a month to have as their own.

 _Come over now then._ It’s ridiculous, and dumb, because he just dropped her off, and he’s probably still only like a block away. But this doesn’t feel like it’s a feeling she can bear alone, not because it’s sad, but because it’s much too happy. 

_Okay then._ She can practically hear his laugh through the phone.

He smiles, kind of exasperatedly, when she opens the door, which just makes her laugh and scream and do all the things she usually does when he does something cheesy. But he hasn’t done anything cheesy, just shown up at her place like she asked him to.

“What?” Eric asks, and he’s teasing her for sure.

“I forgot.” She holds up the necklace, specifically the part with the ring. “I love you,” she says, because there’s nothing else to say. Nothing else that comes close to describing everything running through her in this moment. 

He smiles like it’s the best thing he’s ever heard her say, and she finds herself enveloped in a hug and then the door is closed and she’s kissing him and everything is good. Her hands dig into the hair at the nape of his neck, clinging maybe a little too tightly as he leans into her touch. His hands are everywhere - one playing with the small metal chain that the ring floats on, fingers just brushing her collar bone every time he moves, and one around her waist. She doesn’t think she’s ever felt so warm under someone else’s touch.

It’s still raining outside, like it has been since the night of the party, but the sound no longer bothers her. Eric’s hoodie is a little damp from the weather, though, and when she clutches him tighter some of the water soaks into her shirt. 

This kiss is different than the last one, where she’d sat on the counter of his kitchen and somehow felt jealous that the food he was cooking was stealing his attention away. This time she’s a lot less nervous about whether or not she still remembers how to kiss someone. 

When they break away, he’s still got a hand at the small of her back. Like a tether. Or an anchor. 

Solar spends a full minute fixing his hair back up again.Eric just laughs - they spend a lot of time laughing together. “Have you ever seen _1984_?” he asks. She shakes her head. “Let’s watch it sometime.”

“Not now, though?” Solar asks, even though she full well knows the answer. He should’ve left five minutes ago.

Eric nods. His smile fades a little. “Not now.”

After he leaves, her apartment smells like rain. 

______________________________________

Since he first moved to Korea, **Eric** has been coming to this coffee shop. He forgets how he found it. Either Google or someone’s recommendation. The staff is nice enough. They roast good coffee. Also, no one here ever really feels the need to broadcast that he’s a regular customer. He enjoys that part the most.

There are a few regular customers besides himself. The man with the three dogs who more often than not is coughing while he waits in line. The student with the dark circles under her eyes who orders it black every time. The banker with the gold watch. And, of course, the woman who writes in the corner.

She has the longest fingernails he’s ever seen. Sometimes she wears a pink hat. 

Eric’s never really had a conversation with any of these people, but he feels like he knows them. Like whatever the reverse of an idol is. He marvels at their mundaneness, and envies it a little too. Maybe that’s why he likes this place so much - for a moment, he’s one of them: just another twenty-something with a caffeine addiction.

It’s the woman with the fingernails who stands in front of him today. She orders her usual iced tea with all the politeness of someone in a hurry. Behind him, the man with the dogs coughs a little. 

When she moves out of the way, Eric orders his usual.

The unusual thing about today, however, is that, instead of rushing back to her little corner of the shop where her laptop is plugged in, the woman stands by the drink pick up, waiting. Eric shoots a glance at her. She smirks.

They wait silently together for his drink. She scrolls through her phone. He tries to ignore the unnerved feeling in his chest, sure it will go away as soon as he gets some caffeine in his body.

The barista calls his order. Eric reaches forward to grab it but her hand is already there. The woman lifts his cup, examining the name on it.

“Mr Nam?” she asks, even though he’s been going by _Mr. Eh_ here for about a year now - he’d told the barista it was an inside joke. “Can I spare a minute of your time?”

Of course he’d be cornered the one day his schedule is a little light. She’s holding his drink hostage, though, so he says yes. Eric follows her back to her little corner and is surprised when, instead of opening her laptop, she pulls two manilla folders out of her purse.

“I’d like your opinion on these,” she says, demurely. He wonders if maybe he can get out of this with a selfie. “I think you’ll find them… interesting.”

That gets his attention. She slides his drink across the table. He takes a sip and reads the carefully printed labels stuck on the manilla. _Eric Nam - Solar,_ the first one reads. The second one, _Mamamoo Moonbyul._

Eric looks over the folders. The first one has what he’d thought it would. Shots of them standing in his company’s parking lot. His car parked near her apartment. His schedule, highlighted and annotated. And hers. Even the transcripts of a few of his Life Bar episodes. 

It’s the second folder, though, that shocks him. There’s a very long personal statement. A few polaroid pictures. Two or three highlighted interviews from 2014. Everything neatly labeled _Mamamoo Moonbyul_ and not, you know, the other word that’s not quite on the page, but surrounding it. The word that could ruin her through no fault of her own.

He flips to a random page of the statement. _She didn’t know what she was doing at first, I don’t think. And I might’ve been her first kiss too, just judging by the way she reacted. Looking at her now on TV you wouldn’t think how easily she’d collapse under my fingers-_ He stops reading.

Eric looks away when his hands start shaking in a mixture of fear and rage. 

The woman takes a sip of her iced tea, obviously amused. “This industry thrives on betrayal, you know,” she says. “Whether from someone who works at your company… or a first girlfriend. The saddest part is you all were so careful. All three of you. It’s commendable. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.”

“You’re publishing these?” he asks. He refuses to look at the other folder again. It feels like intruding, somehow. Despite the fact that he’s not the one who collected all this information. 

She purses her lips. “One of them. I still haven’t decided which one. My conscious is being quite difficult with me.”

Eric sneaks a peek at his folder. Then the other one. “She didn’t do anything wrong,” he says, trying to keep his voice level. “She doesn’t deserve this.”

“See, here’s my dilemma,” she tells him. Her press badge flashes in the sunlight from the window. _In Ju-Ah_ it reads, _Celebrity News._ “This wouldn’t be so hard if you were an asshole. If you and your girlfriend were assholes I could at least retain some level of morality this month. I could say ‘ _fuck it, they’re both terrible people anyways_ ’ and do the right thing for once and keep this girl safe, but… you’re not. And, truth is, if I didn’t have all the evidence pointing to your relationship right here on the table, I’d probably be trying to get you to marry my daughter, but-”

Eric brushes off the compliment with a fleeting smile. “But I’m not,” he finishes for her. Her too-long fingernails do a little dance on the files in front of them. 

She smiles. “And that, as you can see, is the problem. I’m running one of these stories. You won’t be able to talk me out of that. But you’re a good person. And I figure you, out of everyone, can tell me which article to run.”

There’s nothing particularly special about this woman, except maybe her honesty. She’s got the same motivations as the rest of the people in this industry. The conversation twinges with an air of _blackmail_ \- Eric knew that from the moment she pulled out the folder with his name on it. At least she has the gall to be honest about her intentions, though.

“You know what could happen if you run this, right?” he asks, pointing to the folder that isn’t his. “You remember Kim Ji-hoo?”

She grimaces. “The devil’s in the details. I try not to think too hard about things like that. I have to pay the bills too, you know.”

Eric’s hands form fists under the table. “He _killed hims_ -”

In Ju-Ah shushes him harshly. “I know damn well what could happen,” she whispers, voice tense. “I’ve worked long enough to know exactly what could happen in both cases. And I’m guessing you have too.”

The coffee in his stomach isn’t sitting right. “So this is blackmail, then?”

She smiles. “Whatever you want to call it. Call it my mid-life morality crisis, even. Just know, if I don’t publish these articles, someone else will. Someone’s been going from agency to agency, spreading some bullshit about there being a ‘ _secret in Mamamoo_.’ The only way that’s going away is with one of these babies.”

For a writer, Eric thinks, she talks quite a lot. 

“You have until the end of the month,” In Ju-Ah tells him, snatching the folders back off the table before his fingers can even begin to linger on them. She puts them in her purse. He wonders what other terrible things she has hiding in there. She slides her business card across the now-empty table. “If you don’t make a decision by then, I’ll just go with whichever one I’m feeling at the moment. Or maybe even both.”

“What if you’re wrong about me?” he asks. It’s not a very good card to play, but it’s the last one he has.

In Ju-Ah shrugs, but she looks amused. “I suppose I’ll have no trouble leaking your story, then. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been disappointed by an idol, either.”

She’s halfway to the door when she turns around. “Oh,” she says. “I forgot. If it _is_ your story you choose, you wouldn’t mind giving a little exclusive, would you? As a thank you gift?”

Eric grits his teeth, but somehow manages a smile. “Absolutely,” he says. He’s never coming to this coffee shop again.

When she leaves, he puts his hands on his temples, looks down at the floor, and tries not to throw up.


	2. part ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solar makes a sacrifice. Eric tries to breathe. Byul picks a fight. Wheein tells the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs for this chapter: The Blooming by Einstok - Yumeji's Theme from In The Mood For Love. Playlist for the fic can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/readingqueen811/playlist/7L50BDkfX5l9UOSgKAecEW).

part ii

_what do you do with a loving feeling / when a loving feeling makes you all alone? / what do you do with a loving feeling / when they only love you when you’re all alone?_

_-_ a loving feeling by mitski

**___________________________________**

They watch 1984. Cuddled up on a couch, lit by dim lights. They’d eaten earlier, when the night wasn’t quite as dark, and laughed loudly at things that probably shouldn’t have been funny. It’s much quieter now.

**Eric** ’s not intending to bring it up, but Solar makes this comparison between their lives and the party members’. Something about cameras. And free will. And Eric can’t keep it a secret even a little bit.

“Someone saw us,” he whispers, once the credits start rolling Solar looks up at him from where she lies in the crook of his arm. “I don’t know who. Someone at my company. They took pictures, too, and gave them to this reporter. She’s a regular at the same coffee shop as me, though, so she warned me about it but....” His voice trails off.

“Oh,” Solar says, voice quiet. And then “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so loud.”

He laughs, then, because it’s nowhere close to being her fault. It’s not even his, as much as he would like to blame himself for this. In Ju-Ah was right; they were as careful as they could’ve been. He thinks of Byul. Sometimes careful isn’t enough.

“I’m not done,” Eric continues. They both sit up, no longer interested in what’s on the screen. “She showed me two folders. The first one was about us. The second…”

Solar pokes his arm a little too harshly. “What was the second?” she asks. Somewhere outside he hears sirens.

“The second was about Byulyi. It’s bad, Yongsun, really bad. I can’t even tell you what I learned without feeling like I’m breaching her trust. If it gets out…”

She reaches out, and grips his forearm tightly. “She asked you to choose, didn’t she?” Solar asks, voice uneven.

Eric nods, but he can’t meet her eyes. “It’s us… or her. I didn’t think it would be fair to not let you know about it before I give her my answer.”

Solar nods. She intertwines their fingers and leans back against his chest. “We can wait a little,” she asks. “Right?”

There’s a weight on his chest. Not just from Solar, but the situation they’re facing. He’s fairly sure what the answer will be in the end - they’re both self-sacrificing in the same way, after all. Still, Solar’s head in the crook of his neck is a gift he’s not ready to part with quite yet. This quiet night, the movie, even the empty boxes of take out on the table next to them. All gifts.

“Yeah,” Eric assures her. “Just until the end of the month.”

They lay there in silence for a few moments, staring blankly as the credits of 1984 roll. Eric’s thoughts whir, like the cotton candy machine Solar had gotten for her birthday. When the sound designer’s name appears on the screen, Solar speaks again.

“It makes sense,” she says, and Eric frowns and turns to look at her.

“What does?”

She smiles, in a wistful kind of serene way. “That I’d go first. I’m the leader. Leaders go first.”

Her statement hangs like a dark cloud. Eric looks outside. It’s raining again. He feels the business card in the pocket of his jeans like a lead weight and thinks of Byul, who he’d spotted only for a brief moment in the hallway before he came in. She’d been laughing, nose crinkled and silver hair thrown back.

Eric doesn’t know if he even should tell her about what the reporter has. He doesn’t want to ruin her happiness, and just… the way she’d been outed… No, it’s better that they deal with it and leave her out of it. It’s better that she doesn’t have another reason to give him that raised eyebrow of wariness. It’s better that she be allowed to forget her past.

He holds Solar a little tighter. They put on another movie.

___________________________________

**Solar** sits on the ground in a pencil skirt, a blanket wrapped around her legs. Above her, a screen flashes with a list of things that may or may not be true. Across the circle, Wheein eats another piece of fruit. No one seems nearly as nervous as she does.

It was a new segment, they’d been told by the producer, right before they began filming. Something to add flavor to the show. They put a list of rumors on a billboard and have Mamamoo answer _true_ or _false._ The catch is, however, that, for every one they answer _false_ , they have to complete a challenge.

So far, she’s refuted the North Korean refugee one, and “proved it” by running through an obstacle course of cones and hoops with her blanket tied around her waist. She knocked down about half of it, which thoroughly satisfied the MCs. Solar’s still not totally convinced that she likes this game.

“So, Wheein,” the older MC, who’s dressed in some sort of tropical shirt, asks, looking up at the board with a smirk. Wheein quickly swallows her fruit. “What’s this about you and a BTS member?”

Wheein laughs, but they all know it’s a hard topic. Just the mere association with them has caused them to be sent threats. Even if Wheein _did_ have anything with a BTS member - which she _doesn’t_ \- the question itself will cause more trouble than the answer. Solar blames that awfully worded rumor list.

“No, no,” she assures the audience. “While I respect BTS sunbaenims and their music, I am not dating any of them.” She laughs again. “The only boyfriend I have time for is my kitten.”

For a beautiful instant, the awful list of rumors is replaced with a montage of photos of Wheein and Kkomo. She must have worked that answer out with the producer beforehand. The list quickly comes back, though.

Wheein’s challenge is to sing the chorus of _Blood, Sweat, and Tears_ while dancing like a cat. She fails spectacularly, collapsing into laughter with the rest of them after the first few lines, but it’s fun to watch. She’s always delightfully over the top.

Next is Byul’s turn. Solar’s stomach feels made of rocks before the MC even asks his next question. She knows it probably won’t be _the secret_ \- all of these rumors are fairly popular already - but her heart still teeters on the edge of a cliff as he speaks.

“And Moonbyul, is it true that the group you were kicked out of before debut was an SM group?”

Solar breathes a sigh of relief. This, at least, is something she knows for sure about. Their predebut audition status is something the four of them discuss quite a lot. She could recite all of their stories by heart.

Byul smiles. “Ah, that isn’t true either,” she says. “I did go to SM academy, though.”

“Well then,” the MC responds. “Let’s see how you dance to some songs from SM idol groups.”

She obeys. They watch. The cycle continues. Solar is left with an unsettling taste in the back of her mouth, one that makes her even more frustrated about the situation with the files.

She should’ve known whatever secret this is. They share everything with each other, the four of them. How is it she can answer all of the questions on the screen but doesn’t know about the one thing that would affect them all the most?

And, her mind can’t help but jump to the worst conclusions, either. Secret pregnancies. Old, famous boyfriends. Jail time. Something terrible like that. No matter what, she’d forgive her. She has to know she’d forgive her. Or still love her. Or something.

Solar watches Byul dance, watches her spin and jump and shower the camera with more grease than is probably necessary. _I’ll forgive you_ , she thinks again, hoping in her own weird way that her thoughts will permeate hers. _I’ll protect you._

She wonders if they’ll ask her about Eric. They don’t.

___________________________________

A car date, Eric thinks, is one of the more uniquely fun cliches of dating as an idol. He’d been avoiding it at first, since it’s not something he’s ever had to do before, but the reporter’s proposal had scared the both of them enough into being a little more secretive. No need to run the risk of someone else discovering them and Byul’s story being published as punishment for their carelessness.

When Solar gets into the car, she laughs at the scenario. He’s filled the back seat with blankets and soft, battery-powered lights. And pillows too.

“Pillow fort?” she asks, after she says hello.

Eric smiles. “Why not?”

They crawl into the makeshift fort. He’s grateful he thought of the idea to also cover the windows with quilts. It’s a little bit suffocating, but the windows are cracked and the cool night air is refreshingly breathable compared to the hot air of the day.

Solar pulls out her phone and they watch a movie together (it’s become their go-to date event since they’re no longer allowed to do almost anything else). Last time she’d said she likes watching the films in English with him. It might have something to do with the fact that sometimes, when she doesn’t understand something, he’ll pause the movie and repeat the phrases in Korean with little voices. She always laughs at that.

They’re halfway through _The Grand Budapest Hotel_ when Solar suddenly closes her eyes tight. Eric pauses the movie to ask what’s wrong, but they’re open again just as quickly the next second.

She’s biting her lip, arms tense, eyes wide. “I made my decision,” Solar says. “On the reporter.”

Eric nods. “Oh. Okay. What… what did you decide?”

“Do it,” she whispers, but she still feels tense under his touch. He swallows. “Do it. Do it. Let her do it. I can’t just keep living on edge like this anymore. It’s like-”

“Like the rooftop?” he guesses, and it should be a joke, but it’s not because he can’t find any laughter in it.

She doesn’t laugh either, just lets out this ruffled kind of sigh. “Like the rooftop,” she agrees. “Like I’m back there, standing there, listening to you say you love me and feeling like the ground is going to crumble under my feet any second now.”

“I love you,” he assures her, as if it’ll make the moment lighter. Then he says it again in English, just to cover all of his bases. “ _I love you._ ” He kisses her nose and she smiles just a little bit, eyes looking up at him, the light of his phone reflected in her dark pupils.

“I think it’s the right decision,” Solar continues, still slightly smiling. “For Byulyi. If it’s really as bad as you say it is…”

Eric thinks again of the papers, of all the research he’s done in the time between when he first saw them and now, of all the many many things pointing to the fact that a reveal like that would be the death of her career - if not her soul - right now. “I think it’s the right decision too. And we’ll manage, somehow. I’m not going to leave you in the cold just because a few million people suddenly know we’re dating.”

Solar scrunches up her face. “Good.” She leans up and kisses him, softly at first, and then more intensely. Eric puts his phone down on one of the pillows next to him and kisses her back. The movie is forgotten, brushed aside by hands and mouths and the unspoken hope that maybe, just maybe, everything will work out okay.

___________________________________

Solar pulls her aside after rehearsal, footsteps timid and guilty. **Byul** is half tempted to check Dispatch.

“What did you do?” she asks, in a voice that is meant to sound teasing, but comes off more as harsh and demanding. She inwardly curses at her inability to contain her emotions.

Solar moves all of her hair to one side - a nervous habit. “Um. There’s this reporter…” she says.

Somewhere, on the inside, in a very deep dark place that she’s tried very hard to squish, a part of Byul screams _I told you so._ The rest of her, however - the part that has always wanted to shelter her members from the world more than anything else, the part that would lay herself down in the path of anything that tried to hurt them - staggers back. She remains standing still.

Solar’s legs cross. And then uncross. She tucks another piece of hair behind her ear. “Long story short,” she says. “We talked it over, and we’re going public. We’ll be okay. It’s not the _best_ timing, but it would have to happen eventually, and we might as well have control over the narrative…”

Byul purses her lips, nodding. Everything sounds so certain, so decided. It’s weird, she thinks: Solar making a big life decision like this without even talking to her about it first. To be fair, it might’ve been weirder if _she_ was making decisions about _their_ relationship. Things are weird enough in that aspect already.

“I already talked it over with the company,” Solar adds.

_Fantastic,_ Byul thinks.

She hates the way she looks at her, then, like she’s blindly groping around in the dark. Like she can’t see all the pieces of the world they live in. “Maybe it’s for the best,” Byul says finally, because she can’t stand the silence.

“What?” Solar’s voice is a terribly lost kind of soft.

“We need a restart anyways.” The more she talks the better of an idea it sounds. “We should stop… whatever it is we’ve been doing. Playing with things that could get out of hand. That already might have. Maybe it’ll be that for us.”

There’s a lot under the surface of her statement. Some of which she’s not sure Solar fully understands the gravity of. Instead of explaining it further, though, she just forces a smile and nods her head.

“Is that a blessing from you, then?” Solar asks, as if Byul hasn’t given them her blessing ten times over already in the form of backpacks and stolen pictures and songs and all the other things that must’ve gone unnoticed. A lot of things between them seem to go unnoticed.

Byul swallows. “Tell Ric-hyung if he breaks your heart I’ll kill him.”

Solar’s laugh makes her feel like her chest is bruised. This isn’t the first time it’s done that to her, but it’s the time that hurts the most. She never really feels it when the bruises form, only when she’ll gently touch them afterwards. It’s the gentleness that makes it hurt more, maybe. “He’s already scared of you,” she teases, and Byul fights back the urge to say _Good._

It’s not _good._ It’s not good that she’s just as much a product of this mess as the fans themselves are. It’s not good that she’s all messed up on the inside and doesn’t know how she’ll cope when it’s all said and done because somehow she’s let the one person she can’t tell about this be the one person she needs to.

She looks at Solar, searches her face for any signs of hesitancy, and they’re there, but not in the way Byul wants them to be. They’re not about the relationship itself; they're about the reaction. The reaction that she’s so scared they’ll receive. The reaction that Byul is fighting as hard as she can not to give her.

“He doesn’t have to be,” she says, through a tight jaw. Her nails dig into her palm. She has a sudden urge to dye her hair. “As long as you’re happy, he doesn’t have to be. Besides, I’m not the one you should be afraid of.”

For a brief second, Solar looks panicked, and Byul isn’t quite sure why. “Who _should_ I be afraid of, then?” Her eyes are wide, and she tries to read them but finds only her own reflection.

Her heart contracts, not wanting to force the ugly truth onto Solar. She’ll be facing it anyway, though, in a week’s time. Might as well hear it from a friend than from an angry comment on the fancafe. “Our fans might tear the poor boy to pieces.”

Byul doesn’t talk about the letter she’d gotten that one time from some poor girl who’d said that her speaking up against the way boys and girls are supposed to dress and supposed to dance had given her the courage to tell her parents that she didn’t love the way boys and girls are supposed to love. She doesn’t say _some of them_ \- a rare portion of them - _wish it was real._ She doesn’t say _I’m one of them._

None of that would be fair to push on Solar. And Byul is anything but unfair. Love born out of guilt isn’t love at all.

Solar brushes it off with a giggle. “They’ll understand,” she says. “They’re understanding.” Byul doesn’t have the heart to pursue it any further.

Understanding and accepting, as she knows all too well, are not the same thing.

___________________________________

It’s not the first headline that cements it. Nor the calls from their agencies with confirmation. Nor the way both of their fans immediately start screaming for bloody murder. What cements it is the call Eric gets at about 3 the morning afterwards from the reporter who’d leaked the story, confirming that no other story would be run by her.

**Solar** breathes a sigh of relief.

The two of them, the previous week, had sat through an interview with her, trying to answer her specific questions in the vaguest way possible. They’d started dating recently. She met his family a long time ago. Things like that.

Her nails had been too long, fingers wrapped around her pen like a python, slowly squeezing the life out of its victim. She’d smiled at things she wasn’t supposed to smile at and written the most when they were silent. Solar had walked away from the whole thing feeling like she never wanted to give an interview ever again.

But now, now it’s over. Now, she lays on her couch, waiting for the text that’ll let her know the car has arrived to take them to the festival, and reads the article. It’s decisively not terrible. Better written than a dispatch leak or simply a joint statement from their companies.

Hwasa sends her a text that’s just a quote from the article and a winky-face emoji:

_“Solar talks about their relationship like a college freshman might, with all the naivete of a girl in love.”_

Okay, so some parts of it weren’t true. She probably upped the “innocent” image due to that call their PD had made after reading the rough draft. Solar’s pretty sure she spent half of that interview glaring. And the _nerve_ to call _her_ naive, after what she did to get this interview...

_“Eric Nam, once entitled the ‘Nation’s Boyfriend,’ now sits hand in hand with Mamamoo’s leader. As he describes his wish for fans to respect their relationship and their privacy. Their matching ring-necklaces from their time on We Got Married glitter together around their necks.”_

Solar thinks back on the photographs of them and rolls her eyes. It’s not like anyone was respecting their privacy anyways. She stops reading and is about to scroll down to the comments when she gets another text from Hwasa:

_Don’t read the comments._

That alone is enough to break her heart. It doesn’t hurt as much as the thought of seeing an article with this intricate level of detail expose whatever secret Byul’s hiding, but there’s still a rawness in the back of her throat.

Solar takes a sip of water and responds quickly. _Don’t worry I won’t ^^._ The liquid cools it a bit, but she’ll probably have to eat something in the car to make sure her voice doesn’t give out.

_It’s just the beginning of the day_ , she tells herself, so the rest of her won’t give out. _People will have better reactions later._

Outside, she hears a car horn. Then she gets the text. Solar checks her red lipstick on her way out the door, finding a small amount of joy in the way it looks. _Little victories_ , she thinks. She puts the tube in the pocket of her backpack and opens her door.

She falls asleep on the way to the performance and dreams of a happy ending.

___________________________________

Spring into summer is, in **Wheein** ’s opinion, the best part of festival season.

Last year she hadn’t fully been able to appreciate it. At least, not this part - the beginning part - when things are still a little rainy and chilly, but everyone is standing outside in shorts and umbrellas anyways, because they can just _taste_ summer around the corner.

This year, the Moo-Bongs are abundant. They litter the field of students like actual radishes. She’s never been so proud of their weird, not-so-little fandom. Despite the rain earlier in the day, there’s only fog in the air now, and the green lights glisten under the condensing water droplets.

Maybe she’s weird too, but she likes the look of it. She likes how, as they come onstage, the lightsticks buzz and flash, like little aliens who too are welcoming them to the university. Kkomo would like them too, she thinks. She might have to get one just for him to play with. Surely that won’t be as much of a disaster as the last time she brought home a toy.

They have a good set today. Probably to make up for the tsunami of reaction that happened in the morning, as they were driving here, about Solar’s now-public relationship. They’ve got the fun songs. The clap-along-and-sing songs. With Um Oh Ah Yeah gracing the top of the setlist. Love Lane, too. And Funky Boy. And everything else.

They’ll walk away happy, she thinks. The fans will remember that they love them for more than just their continued single-ness. They’ll survive. Solar will be happy, too - that’s the most important part. They just have to get through today and tomorrow. Easy enough.

And it works, until their second to last number.

Wheein only sees it out of the corner of her eye, at first. Byul and Solar are moving towards each other, again, like the magnets they are when they’re onstage together. The wind is harsh around them. Solar’s hair flies and floats and dances. Wheein thinks no part of this should be considered _dancing._

One hand comes up to the collar of Byul’s button up. They spin around each other, microphones crossed, Solar still singing her high note. The rap continues, more ferocious than before. It’s climactic, exciting. Everyone is screaming, loud, so loud that it almost drowns out the song.

They’re intriguing, she’ll give them that. Despite seeing them practice this, Wheein still can’t look away, and she doubts the audience can either. It’s the intensity of it all, the emotional impact that comes with Solar’s dizzying highs and Byul’s low, steady stream of words. It feels like everything is floating, pulled in by their gravity. Moon and Sunrise at the center of everything.

Solar’s note ends. Byul’s rap follows suit. It should be over, but it’s not, because they’re all still holding their breaths. And then, Solar does something that _definitely_ was not discussed in rehearsal - because Wheein would’ve adamantly protested it; she kisses Byul on the cheek.

This time, the screams really do drown out the music.

Then, she spins once more, and that’s when everything really falls apart, because Solar’s coat flies up in the wind to reveal a silver necklace. A very particular one. Pictures of which had accompanied the article this morning. Whatever rollercoaster they’re riding takes a sharp turn downwards.

The mega screen above them zooms in. Fifty cameras flash at once.

Luckily, Hyejin’s part comes next, and, as she struts to the front of the sage, breaking the spell with her own charisma, Wheein mouths a _thank you_ to her. Sometimes she realizes just how good of a thing it is that they can all hold their own against each other. They can pass the baton off, let the performance be, in the end, more than whatever mess their older members decide to create just to get an audience’s reaction.

Wheein accompanies Hyejin with her own soprano descant, and together they regain the crowd’s focus. Someone cheers at her high A. They move into the chorus together again, a cohesive unit of four. She finds it in her to look to her right again, and finds Solar smiling, as if nothing happened at all.

Byul looks a little dazed, but she’s still dancing well, so whatever messed up feelings have just gotten even more messed up will have to wait until later.

One time, Wheein remembers, Kim Do Hoon had called her and Hwasa the center of Mamamoo. That might’ve been true at one point, but not anymore. That dream disappeared somewhere in between Um Oh Ah Yeah and the winter that had come afterwards.

Not that she really cares who’s the center of the group. They have a leader for a reason. And Byul and Solar are so compatible that it makes sense they would’ve split the duties amongst themselves: Solar leading and Byul being the engine that just constantly pushes them forward.

When they’re done, Hyejin takes her microphone back up to her lips. “You’d better be careful with that necklace, Yongsunnie,” she teases. “I heard it’s special.”

Solar looks at the floor. Someone in the crowd curses at her. The word just makes the four of them move closer together, though. Byul wraps an arm around Solar, protectively. Wheein gives her a hug too. Solar’s breathing sounds uneven.

“Yes,” their leader responds, ignoring the comment. “It is.”

The person who yelled the word is promptly pushed away from the stage. Wheein feels a sudden burst of relief for their fans. A few people in the front row link arms, like they had at the airport the first time they went to Vietnam. There’s a hostility in the air, though, like the audience is divided on something.

“Okay,” Wheein steps forward, smiling brightly, because Solar seems to have forgotten she was supposed to announce the next song. “Next, we will be singing Pride of 1cm.” That gets a good reaction.

They perform the rest of the setlist without a hitch. Somehow, even the fireworks at the end of _Decalcomanie_ are perfect.

The rain resumes as soon as they stop performing. The show halts for a moment, to put the canvas tents back up to protect the sound equipment, and they watch the final act - a rookie girl group - shiver through their number in their short sparkly dresses. Wheein suddenly feels grateful for her jeans and white button up.

“They’re not happy,” Solar says, when they enter the car to go home.

She doesn’t even look at the rest of them, just stares blankly ahead, like some part of her broke out there onstage. Wheein’s not sure how to tell her that it’s not as bad as she thinks it is, because when Solar gets like this, when she shuts herself off, the walls she puts up are harder to breach than success in the American industry.

She blinks, like there might be tears in the corners of her eyes. Wheein winces. “They’re not happy about it.”

_It’s the weather_ , she wants to tell her. _No one is happy in bad weather like this._ _No one is happy when they’re standing outside and it’s raining. No one is happy when they’re scared of losing you._

That last part is the reason she doesn’t voice it. She’s not quite at the level of the fans out there, whose eyes gave off that fierce feeling of protectiveness, but she’s close. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Eric - she does, on some level. She just doesn’t trust guys in general. Both her and Hyejin have fallen into too many black holes, been stuck there for too many years, made too many bad mistakes because of a pretty face and a voice that might taste a little bit like home.

_He’s not your home_ , Wheein also wants to tell her. _We’re your home._

When she does speak, pushing all her thoughts aside, the thrum of her head has dulled into the rhythmic sound of rain outside. “It’s going to take time,” she tells her, unsure of when their roles became so reversed. She’s not used to taking care of Solar, if she can even call this that. Usually Solar’s the one who takes care of her. “You couldn’t have expected everyone to be happy right away.”

She makes a small noise in the back of her throat. Something primal. Like a wounded animal. Or a war cry. Wheein’s not quite sure. “I don’t know what I expected,” she says. “I just wanted to do the right thing.”

Wheein reaches over and puts her hand on Solar’s forearm. She’s cold under her fingertips. “When?” she asks. “When you revealed your relationship or when you and Byul started this whole thing?”

Solar opens her mouth like she’s about to speak, but nothing comes out. She turns to look at Wheein with a puzzled expression on her face.

“The fanservice,” Wheein explains. It should be obvious, but Solar’s never really seemed to be too keenly aware of exactly what she’s been doing all these years. Everything is choreography to her. She’s seen her practice it, the push and pull, in the dance room, along with their regular choreography. As if it’s all just part of the show. And, she supposes, in a way it is, but it also goes beyond that. There are all kinds of fucked up repercussions that go with it. “Do you think _that’s_ the ‘right thing?’”

She watches Solar shoot a nervous glance past the car door, at where Byul and Hyejin stand in the rain with umbrellas, playing together for the few fans left with cameras. “I don’t know,” Solar says. “I thought- I guess I thought it was harmless, but now… I don’t know why they’re so hurt. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Wheein watches Hyejin poke Byul with her umbrella. _Harmless._ It’s not the same kind of fanservice, though. Playing together in the rain is so much more different than getting down on one knee and proposing with a candy ring like they had a few months ago, much to Wheein’s distaste. There’s a difference between carrying each other on their backs as they run into a venue and having their latest ad lib being asking each other out, and she’d always thought Solar knew that. Byul too. Now, however, she looks at her kid-leader’s gloomy expression, and realizes maybe the difference has only ever been clear to her.

None of this is anything close to harmless anymore.

“I’m not going to explain it to you,” Wheein says. “Because I feel like it’s something you need to figure out on your own. But, I think the fans will come around, eventually. They just need to adjust to this new story. It doesn’t fit with the one they know so far. Think of it that way.”

“So…” Solar begins, tentatively, still watching their members play in the rain. “We told them a story, and they’re upset because they didn’t know Eric Nam was even a character in it? Is that what you’re saying?”

Wheein sighs, turning away from the scene outside, and closing her eyes. She really doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. “It’s more complicated than that,” she tells her, and then puts her earbuds back into her ears. The music is good: soft and intense. It doesn’t block out all of the noise, though.

“I did this for Byul, though,” Solar says, and Wheein picks it up in between the thrum of the snare drum. “To protect her. I wish they could understand that.”

Wheein closes her eyes a little tighter, after that, not in the mood to think about all the things her older members are keeping from her. _This is their mess_ , she reminds herself. _They can clean it up themselves._ Besides, it’s not like they _want_ her helping. If they did they’d talk to her about something, anything at all.

Hyejin and Byul climb back into the van. Wheein looks at Byul and says, with possibly a little too much bitterness in her voice, “You’ve still got lipstick on your cheek.”

Byul goes red, swallows, and hastily wipes it off. Wheein wishes she hadn’t seen it.

___________________________________

**Solar** goes home and tries to write a song. Her mind is muddled in a way only music can solve. Wheein’s words in the car didn’t make enough sense for her to feel like she really understands what it is everyone is upset about. It’s about story. A little bit. Maybe. Maybe they told the wrong one.

She wants to write down the right one now, despite not knowing exactly what that is.

The strings of the guitar hurt her fingers after a while, but she’s on a roll so she can’t stop. She plays and plays and there’s not really a song about it, not one that she’ll remember later, anyways, but she knows that she only feels like she’s strong when her fingers are aching. There are words to the song, too, but they only rhyme in couplets and a chorus gets lost in her nonstop string of verses.

It’s songwriting in the most simple aspect. Improvised and alone in her apartment, surrounded by lights and soft blankets and the sound of her own heart pulling itself back together. It’s the way she used to do it, two years ago, when Pink Funky was still little more than a concept, when _Sting_ was the only word she knew to describe the feeling of the constant thorn in her side.

The rhythm is playful, teasing almost. The opposite of how she feels. But that’s how music is supposed to be. It’s supposed to take her away from her troubles. Away from every bad thing she’s accidentally read about herself in the past few days. Away from everything that makes her feel like she’s not strong at all, can’t be, because if she was she wouldn’t _care_ so much about everyone else’s feelings.

“Did you want me?” she sings. “Unconditionally?” She’s already forgetting the question, letting every bad thought slip out and float away, but it rings in a rushing kind of way. Like an old bronze bell. A memory. An aching.

Her head hurts. Solar puts the guitar down.

She lays down on her bed, the guitar next to her, a bad replacement for company. There are stars behind her closed eyes. The room feels too small, and it’s closing in on her very very slowly.

The two lyrics don’t leave her head, though. She knows they’ll still be there in the morning, too. Things like this always seem to stay. Even when everything else is trying its best to run away from her.

She just feels lost, drifting. Solar pulls her pillow over her head, hoping the darkness will give her some clarity. It doesn’t.

Normally, this is the point where Solar would call Byul and she’d come over and they’d talk about it, but she’s scared to. There’s this secret between them now, one that she doesn’t even know the full extent of. She can feel herself press against it like those teenagers in that American TV show she saw once, holding a balloon between their stomachs. Only, with this, she’s scared of more than just the loud noise if it breaks.

No one wants to hear songs about that, though. Solar looks at her guitar again, mourning her lack of company. She pulls out her phone, and, instead of dialing Byul’s number, she calls Hwasa.

Hwasa picks up after the first few rings. “Yes?” she says, and, for a moment, Solar’s words catch in her mouth.

“Do you want to go eat something with me?” Solar asks, picking at the polish on her nails. “Just the two of us?”

“As long as you don’t drink anything.” Hwasa’s teasing jabs never hurt. Solar supposes it’s because she’s the maknae. “I know a perfect place.”

Their manager drops them off at the tteokbokki restaurant Hwasa suggested. It’s warm, and well-lit. They eat and laugh together, for the first time in a while, and the world is a perfect shade of golden.

“I miss this,” Hwasa says, when they’re full. “I don’t think we’ve done this since we were trainees.”

Solar nods. “And that Christmas. When we both didn’t have any better place to go.”

“You took care of me, like you always do. You take care of all of us.”

A soft guitar sound floats through the air, from the radio mounted high in the corner. An old song, one she used to know. The words are not quite there, but the melody is familiar. She jots the name down on a napkin.

___________________________________

The backlash comes in waves. They react, they forget, they remember. It happens over the span of a few weeks, ricocheting out of control a little more every time someone comes out with a new article repeating the same facts.

It’s the Korean fans. Then the International ones the next day, when the articles have been translated. Variations on the same phrases repeat again and again in various languages. _She’s a slut. She doesn’t deserve him. He doesn’t deserve her. I know what’s best because I went to one fanmeeting once and therefore know the inner workings of their minds._ And, of course, his favorite: _It’s all so obviously a publicity stunt._

They’re right to sense that there’s something off about the quickness of their announcement, and the unusual way they went about it, but **Eric** ’s not exactly in the position to correct them.

He doesn’t quite mind the comments about himself. It’s the ones about Solar that hurt the most, though. The ones that get more and more colorful as time goes on. She doesn’t say that it bothers her, but he’s heard about incidents through her members and the news and the occasional hate tweet he gets from her fans.

Their first event together in months is a competition-style awards show. Everything is pre-decided beforehand, but each group of idols and solo artists still has to perform as if it was a competition. The audience sits, cameras ready, waiting for something to happen.

Eric thinks about the songs he wishes he could sing. The ones he wrote with Solar in mind.

And it’s not until he’s standing onstage next to her, not singing their song or their lyrics or anything about _them_ but he just has the chance to grab her hand in public that he realizes just how cold she seems. It’s not about the outfit, she’ll tell him later, but other things. Things that make her grip his fingers tight in the dark even though no one really seems to have noticed what they’re doing yet.

This isn’t home. Not his apartment or hers or the ocean and the stars. It’s some other type of beast entirely. It’s cold and bright at once, and he hadn’t realized just how much so until he had her next to him, until they were clutching each other like lifelines, until they both were trying desperately not to freeze in the tundra that is their world.

There will be photos later, he knows that. Footage too. Questions and comments and most likely articles, but he doesn’t care about any of that right now. Right now they’re secure and somewhat hidden and he’ll let go of her hand when they call out the name of the winner, when people have to move and people have to be congratulated, but not right now.

Right now all that matters is keeping her from freezing all alone.

“We can talk later,” he promises her, whispering the words into her hair. She doesn’t freeze under his touch, but seems to melt instead. They both do. It’s easier when they’re next to each other, together; they can shield each other.

Her response is in English. A simple “Okay.” This isn’t the time for long conversations. They’re already drawing enough attention to each other as it is, standing close and leaning into each other’s touch. He sees one camera flash. And then another. He can’t tell if it's his fansite or hers. He wishes they wouldn’t.

And then, at the same time, they might as well. Because everyone knows now. They would’ve known eventually anyways. At least this time everything is _theirs._ The world may be cold, but their little corner of it belongs to them, and so they can keep it as warm as they need to. The narrative is theirs to spin as they please, and this specific moment might be more out of necessity than desire, but that doesn’t mean they’re not still the ones spinning it.

On the third camera flash, Eric pulls away. He returns to his spot, as if nothing happened, but his hand still grips hers. They announce the winner. Everybody claps. They both let go only for a minute to do that, to congratulate, to celebrate, and then they find each other again in the cold sea of people, because it feels necessary at this point.

Amber will give him a look for it later, and he won’t have any words to explain it other than _instinct._ It also might be a little bit of reclaiming himself. He’s felt so alone in the past few months, like he can’t control his own life. This relationship, this one thing, this article that leaked news without his company’s permission, it feels like it’s the only thing under his control.

And it’s barely under control, he knows that. His fans are upset. Her fans are upset. But Byul is okay, protected for now, and the conflicting statement released by his own company - who he hadn’t told in the first place, scared they would try and take it away from him - has made quite a few people question their earlier statement about his long-deleted tweets.

“When I said cause trouble,” Amber says in the hallway at the end of the show. “I didn’t mean out your relationship to the world.”

“There was… a complication,” Eric explains. He won’t give away Byul’s secret, but he finds himself wishing Amber already knew. She would be a good friend to lean on.

Amber nods and doesn’t press it further. She gives him a slightly shaken smile and runs her fingers through her short hair. “Whatever you say. But listen, man. I’m happy for you and everything. The two of you are good together. No matter what the internet is saying. What do they know?”

Eric watches the other idol groups pass around them on their way out. Everyone seems so normal when they take off their costumes, with bags slung over their shoulder and sneakers on. His eyes catch on a particularly young idol, who’s struggling with the heavy door. Eric helps her open it and looks back at Amber.

“They don’t even know the half of it,” he says.

___________________________________

“You didn’t have to do that,” Byul shoots at her, voice dangerously quiet, as soon as they reach their apartment building. They’re standing out in the hallway, and it’s so late **Solar** is almost scared to talk.

She’s on edge. She can feel it in her arms. Something doesn’t feel quite right, hasn’t, not since she left the stage and let go of his hand. Her answer should be something nice, she knows that, but everything that’s happened recently has made her stubborn and angry.

When Byul grabs her wrist, she spins around, trying her hardest not to hit the wall with her hand. “Do what?” Solar asks, a little too sharply, and she hates how her words taste like poison. She hates the resentment that sits in the pit of her gut.

She doesn’t lessen her grip. “That was hardly the time for fanservice. You should be trying to _make nice_ with your antis, not-”

“ _Fanservice?_ ” All of Solar’s previous attempts at being quiet fly out the window in one outraged word.

Byul is far too calm. Times like this she wishes she’d be more explosive. Solar doesn’t like being the only one who reacts to things out of the two of them. “Yes,” Byul repeats. “ _Fanservice._ I don’t care what you two do on your own time, but at _that time?_ During the _fans’ time?_ It’s enough that you went public so soon, you don’t have to constantly remind them of your relationship.”

Whatever monster exists in her stomach grows a little larger. “You say that as if we had a choice.”

“You _always_ have a choice, Yongsunnie. You act like living with a secret is the worst thing in the world. I’m sure it must have killed you, every day, that you couldn’t shout it to the world, but did you ever once think of how the _world_ might have felt once they knew about it? There are some things that are better kept secret.”

“I know that,” Solar murmurs, trying desperately to control her quickly-heightening rage. “ _That’s_ the reason I did it. It wasn’t because of _me_ or _my wishes_ or whatever selfish trait you think I have. It was because some reporter _cornered him_ and told him that they knew some secret of yours so dangerous he won’t even share it with me and we compromised with a better headline. I did this for _you!_ ”

Byul steps backward. Stumbles, more like it. It’s not a victory, not really, but it tastes like one only because _finally_ whatever marble-solid resolve she’d had before has crumbled. Solar no longer feels like she’s the only one caught up in this mess of emotions.

Truth be told, it just makes her cry. “And the worst part, out of everything,” Solar says, face hot. “Is that, whatever it is I did this for, you didn’t tell me about it. _Yoondo_ won’t even tell me about it. That’s how big it is. I’m supposed to be your _best friend_ , Byul-ah. I was supposed to…” She loses her words in her anger.

They don’t fight a lot. Not like this, anyways. Not about important things. About lyrics, sometimes. And food. And hair. Not earth-shattering, world-turning things like this. Solar forgot how to fight like this. All she remembers is how to keep her head above water, and she’s barely even doing that. She’ll be taking in water - or letting it out - any second now.

When Byul finally speaks again, her voice is loud but shaky. It bounces off the walls of the hallway, across to where Solar’s taken up leaning against the wall for some type of emotional support. She sounds like someone’s broken one of the strings inside of her.

“Who knows?” she asks.

“I took care of it, Byulyi, I-”

She cuts her off. “Who knows, Yongsunnie. _Who?_ ”

“It doesn’t matter! I took care of it! Are you listening? I took care of it for you because you’re my best friend, no questions asked. But now I’m asking, because I don’t understand, _why hide it from me?_ ”

Solar takes a step forward, now feeling the year between them more than ever. Byul backs into the wall, panicked, like a cat in the street. There’s a fear in her eyes that Solar’s never seen before. “Because,” she says. “I care about our fans. I care about what we’ve built. It would destroy that. More than your relationship ever could. Still, that doesn’t mean you need to have all that skinship _onstage_ during-”

“You’re still on that?” she snaps, and almost regrets it, but can’t because she doesn’t regret taking Eric’s hand onstage. She doesn’t regret allowing herself that one anchor when the world feels like it’s closing in on her. Besides, it wasn’t _really_ public, not that part, not when they were in the back row of a crowd of idols. Not when she held his hand on national television six months ago so this really wasn’t all that different. “I don’t see how it’s any different from me hugging you onstage. Or Wheein, for that matter. Or Hyejin. So what if it’s fanservice? Our _job_ is fanservice.”

“ _It’s different._ ” Byul’s jaw is tight. “I can’t explain it. But it’s different. _He’s_ different. _You’re_ -”

“I’m what?” Her question is a challenge.

“It doesn’t matter. _It doesn’t matter._ Just go. Have fun with him. Do whatever you want, I’ll stop standing in your way. Thank you for doing what you did for me, now go ahead and leave us all behind.”

Solar’s face is hot. She can’t breathe. “Oh so _that’s_ what this is about?”

She’s about to yell something else, something maybe too-harsh when the door to Hwasa’s apartment opens. She peeks her head out, eyes a little wide, bare-face filled with worry. “Are you two okay?” she asks, and they freeze. It’s times like this when she really looks like their maknae.

“We’re fine,” Solar says, even though they’re both obviously not. It’s more of an instinctive reaction than anything else. She turns to look at Byul, but she’s nodding her head too, although her eyes still look dark and angry. Somehow, they’re still on the same side. Still trying to protect their younger members from the world.

She takes a deep breath and gives Hwasa the biggest smile she can manage. “I’m going to go get some air,” she announces, just in case any of their other neighbors are listening in. Air sounds like a good idea. And space. And just being away for a little bit, in general.

Solar adjusts the bag on her shoulder, nods once more to Hwasa, and exits the building. As she leaves, she spots Byul’s reflection in the sliding glass door. It might as well be shattered.

___________________________________

When **Byul** shuts the door to her apartment it’s a little too loud. A little too forceful. The sound echoes down the hallway and she knows that everyone has to have heard it. Still, it’s not like she can help what she’s feeling.

She hates that there’s this secret between them, this big impenetrable fortress of a secret with obsidian walls so high there’s no way her faint whisper of the truth can get through. She hates that she’s built it up - had to build it up - throughout the years to keep herself sane.

Byul moves to the kitchen, throwing her bag on her couch harder than she’d intended. Everything feels a little bit out of her control right now. And she probably shouldn’t be cooking, but she needs to eat, she knows that. She turns on her stove, and all that comes out is gas. She twists the knob a few more times until finally a fire comes out, bright and hot.

She covers it with the pot.

It’s such a simple task, boiling water, and yet, as the minutes trickle on, it feels like it’s taking an eternity. She can’t sit still. Or, she can, but her mind is pounding light years ahead of the rest of her, like a steam engine that’s quickly going out of control. She rests her elbow on the counter and leans into her hand. It’s dark outside. The water boils.

From where her bag lies on the couch, she can hear her phone buzz. First one time and then another. And another. Either she’s accidentally been added into a group chat again or someone heard the fight and wants to know if she’s alright. She doesn’t even know what she’d say if that’s the case.

Byul has never been one to shy away from saying when she doesn’t like something. Maybe that’s the worst part of all of this. That she agreed to do it, kept doing it, because some part of her liked it. Not necessarily the part of it being with Solar, but the part of it being in the open. The part where it got applauded. The part where it wasn’t holding hands under a tablecloth and shoving things down inside of her.

So losing it is both relieving and painful. She’s not sure what part stands out the most. She’s not sure what the correct answer to how she’s feeling is right now.

She checks the water. Still not boiling. Her phone buzzes again.

She stands up slowly, like she doesn’t want to wake her non-existent roommates (things were so much simpler when they were all still living together, without that lonely empty feeling that can creep up on her. There’s a reason she doesn’t spend much time in her own apartment.) When she pulls her phone out of her bag, the screen lights up yet again, a cool kind of light in the dark of her living room.

The texts are, unexpectedly enough, from Wheein.

They’re not about the door slamming. Or her conversation with Solar. Or anything that may or may not be all over the internet tomorrow. They’re about green beans, of all things. It’s almost absurd enough to make her laugh.

_Byul pls help_ , the text reads. _I have too many green beans._

She’s not sure if it’s a metaphor for something. Green beans. _Green beans?_ It can’t be, though, she supposes, because she doesn’t have too much of something, but too little. Not enough. Or she’s had enough. Or something like that.

Wheein’s texts continue. _I went to the store and they were having a sale. I don’t know. It made sense at the time._

So no metaphor, then. Just Wheein being Wheein. Just her trying to fix things that she can’t possibly understand the momentum of. Things that are already stumbling far beyond Byul’s control, affecting Solar and Eric and maybe soon the rest of them too. She doesn’t want her hurt. She’s never wanted any of them hurt.

_I need someone to eat them with me._

But that doesn’t mean she’s not hurting herself in all of this. There’s the selfish hurt, the kind that creeps into her head in the worst moments, like tonight, and whispers selfish things like “what if it was you instead,” and the unselfish kind. The kind that reminds her that it’s not her fault - that it’s no one’s fault, because this isn’t the kind of thing that is caused by fault, just human nature - but that she’s chosen a path in life that will make the pain permanent.

And now there’s another layer of it. A losing Solar layer. Either way she moves, she might make her leave. Sure, she’d still be her member, but they wouldn’t be family, not the way they are now. They wouldn’t be home. She can’t tell her the truth and also she can’t keep lying, because she’ll know and then things will be even worse.

It’s a spiral downwards. Fortunately, her water is boiling. That’s the one good part of the day. At least basic chemistry is still a constant in this world. Everything else feels like it’s been pulled out from under her.

Byul looks down at the hot water in the pot and is suddenly struck with the thought that _Eric knows_ \- a thought that hadn’t occurred to her in the hallway because she was so preoccupied with _blackmail_ , and the _reporter_. Her jaw begins to tremble a little, but she doesn’t allow herself to cry thinking about it.

_It’ll be fine_ , she tells herself. _It’ll be fine._ _It’ll be fine because he’s a decent person and if he was going to do something with it he would’ve done it already._

Still, the whole idea of it is as if someone pulled away the curtain when she was showering. Vulnerable. Raw. Exposed. Something _no one else_ was ever supposed to see without her consent, much less Solar’s boyfriend.

Buzz. _Byulieeeeee_

Buzz. _I’m going to send you pictures of Kkomo until you respond._

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

Byul, frustrated, puts the lid back on the pot, pulls away from the boiling water and pulls out her phone. 17 more missed texts from Wheein.

_Fine, come over,_ she sends. _Bring your green beans too. Help me with dinner._

Her first instinct had been to lock herself in her apartment and never come out again, but that wasn’t, and isn’t, the responsible thing to do. The responsible thing is to help Wheein with her weird problem and make dinner and go over to Solar’s place in the morning and apologize and try to figure out how to piece her life back together.

Wheein comes with her cans. They don’t talk much, except for Byul to give her instructions to cut things and ask for seasonings. Wheein seems to have figured out that all she wants right now is quiet and space and yet she is refusing to allow it to herself.

They eat in silence, too. The food is okay. Byul had gotten distracted and burned half of it while they were frying things. The non-burnt parts still smell a little bit like smoke. She supposes that’s the way collateral damage happens. Even after the fire is put out, everything still smells of it.

“You make better mistakes than I do,” she notes, when they finish the meal. Wheein looks up from her phone, curious. She frowns at her.

“What do you mean?”

“Just… this turned out to be a good mistake after all,” Byul explains. “Now we have dinner. I don’t make mistakes like that.”

Wheein gazes at her out of wary eyes. The quiet is thick.

Buzz. Both of their phones go off at the same time. It’s one line, from Solar. When Byul reads it, she has to hold back the lump of regrets that have piled in her throat.

_I’m going on a small vacation ^^. Be back in a week. Have fun with your break._

There is something incredibly impersonal about a group chat, Byul decides. Her phone slips out of her hands and hits the ground. The case breaks, cheap plastic flying. It’s cathartic, somehow.


	3. part iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wheein waltzes. Byul visits an old friend. Solar and Eric do the "run away with me" thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs for this chapter: Gymnopedie No. 1 by Erik Satie - Asos Model Crush by dne. Playlist for this fic can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/readingqueen811/playlist/7L50BDkfX5l9UOSgKAecEW).

part iii

_if you would give me your pinky promise kisses / then i wouldn’t have to scream your name atop of every roof in / the city of my heart / if i could see you / once more to see you_

once more to see you by mitski

**___________________________________**

**Wheein** has a variety show coming up. Another one. In preparation for their comeback. It’s her first one alone since her last disaster and she’s more than a little terrified of messing up.

Byul is still staring at her empty plate of food with enough anger to burn holes in the ceramic. Wheein taps her wrist a few times to get her attention. “Byulie,” she starts, trying not to startle her. “Do you think you could help me with something?”

This is how they used to do it, in the old days. Hyejin would take Yongsunnie and she would take Byulyi. Before they were Mamamoo. Now Solar is gone, flown away like birds in the fall, so that side of the equation no longer matters, but Byul is still here, still angry. Wheein’s still playing her part.

“Huh?” Byul looks up, blinking. “Help you with what?”

“I have to waltz. For this show next week. Do you think you could help me practice. Just a little bit? It might take your mind off of…”

They both look at Byul’s phone, still on the ground, case still broken.

Wheein attempts a smile. “I’ll buy you a new phone case,” she offers.

They drive to the studio in silence. Wheein unlocks the mostly empty building with her set of keys and nods a hello at the night janitor. They turn on the lights in the practice room only halfway. To save light, maybe. Or maybe because it fits the mood.

Wheein takes Byul’s arms into hers, positions them correctly so Byul is leading, and they begin to waltz. It’s half-hearted. She won’t meet her eyes.

Wheein knows how to dance, but this feels like she’s learning the basics all over again. _One, two, three. One, two, three_. Like baby steps. It doesn’t feel quite right though, in ¾ time. Or maybe she’s just gotten used to four being the most perfect kind of number there is, despite the superstition attached.

It feels different when Solar’s gone. Even though they can be alone and the room is quiet. There’s that overwhelming sense of missing her. She feels it radiating off of her partner, too, who’s silent despite the way the music darkens. 

_One, two, three_ , Wheein thinks. _One, two three._ Baby steps. Easy steps. Slow and steady, like learning how to walk again on their own. 

She leans her head on Byul’s chest, remembering how she used to do this when she was younger and a slow song would play, remembering how big of a step it felt back then. It still feels like a big step now. It feels like falling asleep in the same bed and waking up with her head in the crook of her neck only this time it’s not an accident. This time, when she hears her heartbeat, it’s all a conscious decision.

When Byul pulls her closer, it’s sudden, and it surprises her. Her arms are strong around her shoulders, but the breath she lets out into her hair feels so so weak. Wheein’s not sure exactly what it is about the gesture that makes her start crying, but the tears begin to fall anyways. And then Byul’s crying too and the song is forgotten.

They’re both a little more broken up than they thought they’d be. She’s not one to believe in auras, normally - that’s more of Hyejin’s thing - but, if she did, she’d guess both of theirs feel a little like sharpened glass right now. The hug hurts. The dance hurts. Everything about this pierces her insides in a way that almost makes her want to scream, and yet she continues it anyway, because at least it’s better than that dull ache that’s been building up inside of her for weeks now.

Byul is shaking in her arms. She can feel her breathing into her neck, but can’t tell if she’s still sobbing or not. That’s truly the scariest part: here she is, in her arms, as close as she can get and Wheein still can’t tell what’s going on in her mind. Eventually, a tear drips onto the bare part of her shoulder where her sweater has fallen. It winds its way through the curves of her collarbone, wet and miserable and everything that Wheein feels right about now.

“What if she doesn’t come back?” Byul asks. Her voice sounds like it’s not there with them but thousands of feet in the air above.

Wheein’s hands tense at the thought. She’ll come back. She has to. This is just the way Solar is. She’ll do things like this - go to Thailand, be missing for a week, run off with her boyfriend when things get too foggy inside her head. They all know this. Still, whatever logic that usually exists in Byul’s head, that drives her forward and onward - the thing she’d once jokingly called AutoMoon to Hyejin - seems to have lost its way. All that’s left in this room is the two of them and their feelings.

She feels raw. “She’s coming back,” she assures her. “We’re her home. Mamamoo is her home.”

They’re still swaying a little, still stuck in the time signature. Like a slow dance, but twisted, in a way. “Maybe we’re not anymore.” Byul’s entire being feels tense.

“It hurts,” Wheein agrees. She moves them back into the triple-step, suddenly hoping that the movement might heal things. “It’s okay to say it hurts that she’s suddenly on a track separate from the rest of us.”

_One, two, three. One, two, three._ “I thought we were always going to be on the same track,” Byul admits, taking one of her hands off of Wheein’s waist and using it to wipe her eyes. She keeps moving. “Like soulmates, kind of.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Something inside Wheein twinges at the statement. A memory of her own, similar experience. Luckily, in her case, things worked out for the better. “It makes sense, Byulyi,” she assures her. “The two of you… You’re like something else. Scarily similar. You balance each other out.”

“But she doesn’t love me,” Byul mumbles. It’s quiet, so quiet Wheein is sure that she didn’t mean to say it out loud, because this is a type of confession she wasn’t expecting right now. She’d had inklings, sure, but nothing solid to stand on until now.

Her dance partner looks up quickly, eyes teary and terrified. Wheein doesn’t know how to deal with her truth other than to tell one of her own.

“Hyejin didn’t love me either,” she says.

Wheein lets both of their words float in the air. Parallel in structure and form. They look at each other, still holding on, feet still moving in ¾ time. Byul takes a sharp breath in, and then out. When she exhales, her breath is steady for the first time since they got that text from Solar.

“She was dating this _asshole_ ,” Wheein continues, suddenly worried that she’s misinterpreted the moment, desperate to fill the silence. “The guy with the motorcycle. We were young and I _knew_ it wasn’t fair, but I told her anyways because I just wanted her to know that she didn’t have to put up with him. He wasn’t the only one able to love her.”

Byul widens her eyes at the story. She accidentally steps on Wheein’s foot. “What did she do?” she asks.

Wheein purses her lips. “It was weird, for a while. She didn’t feel the same way, but it… it helped. Hyejin didn’t feel so trapped afterwards, I guess. And we grew up and grew together and now everything’s fine again. It’ll be fine for you and Yongsun too.”

“You don’t know that.”

The song ends. They continue swaying, side to side like it’s their first dance. Another one fills the silence, a little faster. Softly strummed electric guitar. Wheein takes the opportunity to go for a spin.

Byul’s hand holds her waist steady as she turns, fingers sliding along the hem of her top. “I didn’t know,” she says, when the turn finishes. “About you and Hyejin. We lived together for almost a year and I had no idea.”

Wheein attempts a smile, but it disappears in the fog of loss. “You wouldn’t have,” she assures her. “It’s not a part of me I’m exactly looking to tell the world. Besides, when would it have come up anyway? Never. Unless I decided to do something stupid like kiss you.”

They both freeze at her words. It’s a possibility now, in a way. Not one Wheein thinks they’ll follow up on, because Byul loves someone else and also _they work together_ and it’s kind of desperate to kiss the first girl you ever meet who’s like you, but a possibility. It’s cliche too. Wheein strives to avoid cliches.

Byul is right there, though. And she hasn’t kissed a girl since that day in Hyejin’s room. Plenty of guys - she’d promised herself only to recognize that side of her attraction from that day forward - but not another girl. 

_Nope,_ Wheein tells herself, and shoves down that little part of her that had thought of it. _Nope. We’re all messed up enough as it is right now._ Besides, it’s not like they could date or anything. Not the way Solar and Eric can, where they can hold hands in public places at only minimal loss to their careers. There’s no point in starting something that would only end absolutely, completely disastrously.

She can wait another five years or so. Or even ten. Wait until they’re older and they’ve disbanded and no one remembers who Jung Wheein is anymore. She thinks it’s funny, in a way, how the time span of _waiting_ becomes longer and longer with the more success they have.

“But that would’ve been stupid.” Wheein says, voice cutting clear through the silence. “Right, Byulyi? We got to choose one thing or another, and we chose our careers. It’s nice to know I’m not in this boat alone, though.”

Byul clears her throat. “Right.” She nods. “Uh, I think you’re ready for that show now. I think you might even remember how to waltz more than I do.” 

They pull away from each other, hands the last part to pull away. Wheein squeezes her hand one last time before letting go. They both have teary eyes again. “Thank you,” she says, and she means it in more than one way.

Byul shrugs. “It was no problem.”

**___________________________________**

Wheein takes her shopping for a new phone case the next day. Or, more accurately, Wheein goes shopping for a new phone case while **Byul** sits in the car because she’s really not in the mood for interacting with people right now.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Wheein asks, right before climbing out of the car. She’d bought it with Hyejin when they both turned 21. They don’t use it much, except for break weeks like this, and they’re both strangely proud of all the ways they’ve decorated it. “You never know, I could buy you something you hate.”

Byul waves her off. “I trust you,” she says. “Besides, if I really hate it I can just switch with you. Take the Kkomo polaroid case.”

Wheein gasps in mock anger. “You wouldn’t.”

Somehow, Byul finds it in her to smirk. It’s at least an upgrade from the previous day. “Try me.”

Wheein doesn’t. She cracks the window - despite Byul insisting that _it’s really not that hot outside_ and _I’ll be fine, Wheein-ah_ \- and locks the door behind her. The car makes a little squeaking sound when she presses the button. It almost sounds a bit like a dolphin. Or a dolphin laugh.

_Nope_ , Byul thinks. _Not going there right now._ It hurts enough to think about her leaving, just packing up and disappearing with only one measly text when they were supposed to use this break to write songs together. It’ll only be worse to think about her smiling and laughing somewhere by the ocean, completely unaware of how messed up everything seems without her.

She can’t remember where she got Eric’s number from. Maybe when they were in Dubai… Oh, yeah. He’d sent her those pictures. One of which she’d posted the day they won that award. She’d been so happy on her behalf that day.

She looks up at the little dangly thing Wheein put on the mirror. “Yes, hello?” Byul asks, when the static on the other end of the phone clears.

“Hey,” Eric answers. He sounds like she’s holding a knife to his throat.

“Are you with her?”

He coughs. “Uh… kind of?” he says. “She’s out getting breakfast. I can call you back when she comes back, though. If you really want to talk to her…” 

“No,” Byul cuts him off. Some kid outside falls off his skateboard. “I wanted to talk to you. Without her listening in. I, um- thanks for what you did for me. You can’t even imagine… Thanks for not telling Yongsunnie too.”

On the other end, Eric makes a noise that’s probably supposed to be reassuring. It’s not. “It was the right thing to do,” he says. 

_Of course,_ she thinks. _Of course he’d put it that way._

She’s surprised, however, when his explanation continues. “I had a friend in college. He was kicked out when he told his parents. I didn’t want to see something like that happen to someone I care about again.”

_Care about_ is a strong phrase, but she’s not complaining. “Thank you again,” Byul says. She knows she’s repeating herself, but there’s not much else she can say on the subject, not when they’re both well aware of all the ways it could’ve destroyed not just her career, but her insides too.

“You should tell her eventually, though,” Eric adds, almost as an afterthought. “I think she’d understand.”

Byul feels like there’s something in her throat. Fuzz, maybe. From her sweater. “I’ll tell her,” she promises. “Just… not now. I need time. To figure things out and… do you think you could give me the name of that reporter? The one who knows?”

“Yeah, hold on.”

A second later, she gets a text from him. No words, just a picture of a business card. She realizes only after he’s sent it that she could’ve just looked at the byline of the article announcing their relationship, but that would’ve meant giving it another hit. She can’t stomach the thought of supporting the career of someone who would willingly do this to her.

After they end the call, Byul looks her up. She has to second guess herself when she sees the picture, because not only does she recognize her; she’s met her before. At the party. She’d been wearing a pink hat.

She must’ve known, even then, when she ran into her. She must’ve looked at her, through her even, with eyes that _knew._ It’s the _knowing_ part that kills her. Byul has spent so much time with no one knowing that the mere thought of anyone, even someone who’s satisfied with secrecy for the time being, knowing.

Eric’s different. He’s proven that. But this author, _In Ju-Ah_ , she’s one large sum of money away from ruining her life. Information is everything, she knows that. She can just see the headline now: _The Real Secret Behind Mamamoo’s Closeness_ or _Source Reveals Mamamoo Member Moonbyul’s Secret Past_ or something even more horrible and attention-grabbing. 

Byul blinks the tears from her eyes and dials the number on the card. She’s not going to let this woman ruin her life, whatever it takes. It’s not that she’s planning on hiding forever, but that she’s still hoping, just as she’s been hoping since she was fifteen, that one day things will be good enough that she can stop. Obviously, they’re not yet. And she’d like to be in control of her own narrative, thank you very much.

The phone rings and rings. Byul makes awkward eye contact with the skateboard kid. He smiles and she looks away. She wonders if Wheein’s car is sound proof. On the thirteenth ring it goes to voicemail.

She breathes a sigh of relief, but leaves a message anyways. “Hello,” she says, to the empty line. “This is Mamamoo’s Moonbyul calling. Eric Nam gave me your number. Do you think we could meet? I’d like to talk to you about an article. Um, call me back. Thank you for your time.”

Wheein comes out of the store to find her laying down in her tipped-back seat, feet up on the dashboard, trying not to cry again.

**___________________________________**

**Wheein** takes up learning ukelele because she can. Also, she needs something to do.

What she does is go over to Byul’s place and sit in her room and play chords while she writes lyrics and it’s not _quite_ writing together - she knows she’s not good enough for that yet - but it more than makes up for all the times she’d rush herself out of the room when they’d start hunching over a notebook and a piano together. That always used to feel like walking in on her parents talking about finances as a kid. 

“Is it a love song?” Byul asks, after a few moments, and Wheein has to confide that she’s not quite sure. 

“Maybe it’s too happy to be a love song,” she admits, because the word _love_ for the both of them seems to rhyme with _being left behind_. Left out of the light. Left confused and angry and wanting to hate her but not quite being able to because they love her. That’s what love is right now. 

(Love is also maybe a dance in the dark of a quiet studio. Almost a waltz. But she doesn’t allow that thought to go past the back of her mind.)

Byul sighs. “That’s right,” she says, and her words sound a little bit bitter. “No one wants to hear too many sad love songs.”

She’s known since last night, the reason for all these sad love songs. The ones that litter the floor and the wall, that exist merely in the air, cluttering Byul’s room with an undeniable fog of loneliness. She asks anyway, though, because she’s curious if she even knows it herself. “Are they about Solar?”

“I don’t know.” Wheein watches Byul scribble something on her paper. “I don’t know if I can really describe how I feel there with a ‘sad love song.’ It’s just a thing. Something weird and aching.”

“How long have you…”

“I don’t know that either. Some line got blurred after Um Oh Ah Yeah. I’d like to believe it’s going away, though.”

Wheein accidentally plays the wrong chord. She frowns. Then she laughs. Byul looks at her curiously.

“A good mistake,” Wheein declares, a callback to her words last night. “I got you to stop frowning.”

She plays for a few minutes more, trying to get her fingertips to memorize the melody as easily as she can memorize a chain of words. Byul continues writing things and crossing them out. A song seems to be forming, though, judging by the growing amount of black on the paper.

Wheein watches Byul twirl the pen around in her hand. She tries to read the lyrics and can’t quite make them out. She’s surprised when Byul speaks again.

“You were right last night,” she says. “About giving things up for our careers. I guess that’s why I didn’t stop when I knew I could have something similar.”

Wheein’s heart hurts on her behalf. She understands, on a level, and she can’t say she wasn’t tempted a few times to do the same. Her and Hyejin are different than Byul and Solar are, though: the two of them made the line clear long before Mamamoo was a thing. 

“I know.” She’s half tempted to walk over to where Byul sits and put a hand on her shoulder. “But you understand now, right? Even I can tell that all of this has gotten you twisted up in knots. And it’s not fair to Yongsun to keep waiting on something she can’t give you.”

She sees Byul wince. It’s a painful truth, she knows, but it needed to be said. “You didn’t have to put it that way.”

“Look, I get that the company was also pushing it but, like, you could’ve said no. Both of you could’ve said no. They would’ve let you say no, but you didn’t…”

“I didn’t want to.”

Wheein nods. “And _she_ didn’t understand what it would do. I never said I didn’t get it, I’m just reminding you that this is your mess as much as it is Solar’s. I know you’re hurting because she left. I’m hurting too. But don’t blame all of it on her.”

Byul looks stiff. She’s clutching her pen tightly. “I’ve _never_ blamed her. I’ve only ever blamed myself. I’ve _hated_ myself for so long now and I…”

This time, Wheein does get up and walk over. She inwardly cringes at her own misunderstanding of the situation. The self-hatred might be the worst part about the thing they share. It eats you up from the inside like acid until there’s nothing left but a hollow carcass of bitterness.

She puts her hand on Byul’s shoulder and feels the tension slip out of her. “Hey,” she murmurs. “There’s no reason to hate yourself. People have feelings for people they shouldn’t all the time. There’s nothing wrong about that. Sometimes the best thing to do is just confess and move on.”

“I _can’t_ do that. It would ruin everything.”

Wheein sighs. “She would understand. She’s understanding.”

Byul snorts. “That’s what Eric said.”

Wheein takes that as her cue to go back to her ukelele. She plays for a while, but feels like she’s slipped into a different key. She’ll have to go back later with sheet music and write down the chords, but not right now. 

Byul too goes back to writing. Her words seem to be flowing easier, though. There’s still tension, but somehow less of it. She gets through another verse. And the bridge. Wheein’s fingers begin to hurt.

“What did the reporter say?” Wheein asks, when the song looks about done. “Do you know who it was yet?”

Byul turns to face her. Her face is serious again. “I know who it was,” she says. “I got an address, too. I think… I think I should go talk to her.”

“Her? The reporter?”

Byul looks at the ground. “Not exactly.”

They don’t talk a whole lot about their exes from before they all met up. At least, she doesn’t think she’s ever heard Byul mention hers. Wheein knows Hyejin’s, in chronological order. Solar only ever dated one jerk before Eric. She’d always just supposed Byul hadn’t dated before that guy she started seeing when they were trainees. The one she’d broken up with after they found out they were going to be able to debut soon.

“Oh,” Wheein says. “So you… she’s an…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Byul goes back to her sheet of music.

They’re quiet for another moment more until Wheein feels the insatiable urge to ask another question. “Can I come with?”

**___________________________________**

It’s only as they’re pulling up to the address that the reporter gave her, looking at the towering white building in front of them, all large windows and sleek edges, that the sinking feeling really starts to hit **Byul**. She doesn’t know why she didn’t look it up sooner. Search it on her phone or something. She should’ve known by the tone of her voice, the way she said the words, that something was wrong.

“No.” she says, when they step out of the car. Wheein turns to look at her. Her dark hair trails out behind her in the forceful wind, halfway to the side, halfway hitting her in the face. 

“Byulyi…” she starts.

“No,” Byul repeats, a little softer this time, still adamantly refusing to move. “She’s not.”

The hospital building fans out in front of them, a pale reminder of all the ways she’s already failed her. Someone wheels their grandmother out of the front doors, an oxygen tank in hand. Byul can’t remember how to breathe.

Wheein links their arms together. “Come on,” she says. “This is why I’m here with you. We’ll go in together.” 

She leads her in through the big front doors, tugging with the pressure that Byul needs to keep moving forward. They follow the signs to the elevator and them up to the fourth floor. The elevator is made of glass too. Byul’s never been scared of them before but now, looking at the way the floor gets further and further away as they rise up, she can’t help but think about how breakable it all is.

The windows. Smash. The marble floor. Crack. Someone could jump through these panels on either side of her and just fall through the tube all the way to the basement and no one would be able to stop them. 

_Momentum_ , she thinks. _Momentum._

Wheein squeezes her arm with her fingers. The bell dings. It’s silver and small. Like those sleigh bells she saw once in a movie. They exit the elevator and walk up to the desk.

She tries not to make too much of a sound as she fills out the visitation form. It’s easier to focus on little things. Her name. The name of the patient she’s visiting. “Relationship?” it asks, and she’s tempted to put _you tell me_ because Byul really isn’t quite sure how to define who anyone is to her anymore.

_Solmi_ , though. “Gi Solmi,” she tells the lady working at the desk. The woman clicks a few times on her computer and frowns a little bit. 

“You’re her first visitor,” she says. “I was beginning to think maybe she didn’t have anyone left. She wouldn’t let the boyfriend see her. Not that I blame her, considering. Ah wait, no, there was that one woman…”

“Oh.”

She points down the hallway on her left and says “Room 24” and Byul makes it all the way to the door before she has to back away again, like she had at the entrance, because of the words on the card on the door. 

“Six broken bones,” Wheein reads, a little tactlessly maybe, but Byul’s not exactly expressing her deepest emotions about the situation right now. “A concussion. Severe bruising on her face and arms. Semi-permanent residency…”

“I’m going to throw up.” Her heart is either moving too fast or not working, she can’t tell. All she knows is that every molecule in her body is urging her to run, get out of there as fast as she can. She takes one more step back, and then another, until she’s over by the chairs by the window, looking down at traffic.

Wheein follows her, and her hand finds her shoulder. “Byulyi?” she asks again. “Byulyi, what’s wrong?”

She presses her forehead into the glass with a secret wish that maybe the pressure will be enough to make it disintegrate. Shatter like her phone case and her heart and the _bones in Solmi’s body, oh god._

“Do you know what happened to her?”

Byul doesn’t need to _know._ It’s obvious enough. The injuries, the things she’d told her before, when they were younger - everything all adds up to one terrible outcome that both makes everything totally clear and so much worse. There’s no retribution to be sought. She’d sought her own.

“I think I let go too easily,” Byul admits, head still pressed against the glass of the window. She watches people go by on the street below and thinks about the distance between the fourth floor and the ground, about what that fall must’ve felt like. “I let go of her and she just… hit the dirt.”

Wheein grabs her shoulder and turns her around. She’s quick about it, too. “That wasn’t your fault,” she says, gesturing vaguely towards the door to the hospital room. “It’s been almost ten years at this point, Byulyi. What were you supposed to do? Be fifteen forever? We can’t all take our first loves with us as we grow older.”

She can’t meet her eyes, too scared by the shame she feels. The space between her eyes hurts. “But he did that to her, he-” she’s shaking now, for the second time in as many days. “I wouldn’t have done that to her.”

Wheein hand is steady, though, and she keeps her still when all she wants to do is run. “You can’t save everyone,” she says. “Solmi’s choices are her own. And, are we forgetting that she’s the one who almost outed you to the _world?_ I don’t care how guilty you feel, Byulyi, I’m not forgiving her after that.”

“Just…” Byul tries. “Look at her, though.”

The two of them turn to peek through the rectangular window on the door again. Solmi’s still sleeping. Her skin is still a deathly shade of pale. Her arm and leg are still in a cast. Every moment she looks at her, another round of memories comes rushing back. Byul can hardly believe she’s the same girl who once chased her through the arcade with a permanent marker. 

Wheein frowns. “I’m looking. But I’m also looking at you. And I hate seeing you like this.”

Byul can’t find her voice. “Like what?”

“Like you’re about two seconds from jumping off the roof as well. Or running away, like Yongsun did. And don’t say you’re okay, because _it’s not okay_. And that’s okay.”

In her own backwards way, Wheein makes sense. Byul has always said that her and Solar are too similar. They’ve been pushing forward, blinders on, for so long, it only makes sense that once they saw what was around them they’d want to run.

She nods, but still doesn’t take a step forward. Wheein moves her hand from Byul’s shoulder to her hand. She intertwines their fingers - a gesture of solidarity - and squeezes tightly. “We’ll go in together, okay?” she asks.

Byul gives in. Her heartbeat is still sporadic, but it’s calming down. Wheein’s hand is an anchor, in a way. She feels more grounded around her. Less likely to try and escape.

Tentatively, they open the door. Solmi looks up as they come in. Dark eyes look the two of them up and down. She pays special attention to their intertwined hands. “Ha,” she says weakly, voice thin. “Have you come to get your revenge?”

The thought of revenge hasn’t crossed Byul’s mind since she got the name of the person who’d outed her. All she feels right now is an emptiness. And pity. The woman who lays in front of them is so far removed from the girl she once knew, and yet so similar too. She has the same smirk, the same dark hair she’d been fascinated with. 

“No revenge,” Byul assures her, although Wheein is glaring. “I just wanted to ask why.”

Solmi raises an eyebrow. “And you brought your girlfriend?”

“What?” Wheein asks, speaking for the first time since they entered the room. “We’re not... I’m her-”

Solmi takes a labored breath. “Her member, I know. I’ve seen you on music shows before. Doesn’t answer my question.”

Byul grips Wheein’s hand a little tighter. “We’re not dating,” she says. “And you should know why since you’re the one who talked to that reporter about me.” Byul takes a step closer to the foot of the hospital bed. “I want to know why you did.”

“Funny,” Solmi says. Her voice is still eerily quiet. “I didn’t think you even remembered me.”

“Remember you?” Byul asks. “How could I not? You were the first person who knew about me, who… Why would I forget any of that?”

Solmi adjusts herself so she’s sitting upright. Byul examines the bandages littering her and wonders if that’s even a good idea. “You didn’t stick around, though. You didn’t keep caring. While you were out there becoming some sort of idol ‘girl crush,’ I was just trying to _survive_. And then _you_ , you ruined everything.”

She takes another step forward and places her hand on the foot of the bed. “What happened, Solmi?” she asks. Wheein gives her a look of bewilderment. “We agreed to go our separate ways. I haven’t seen you - or talked about you - since then. What do you mean by survive? How could I have ruined anything?”

Byul knows she’s probably being too nice about this. She can’t help it, though, when Solmi is sitting there taking labored breaths, bandages covering almost all of her. She supposes she’s always been a little too soft on the people she’s loved. 

“Everything was fine,” Solmi says, mouth trembling. “I was going to get _married_ , in the fall. We were moving in together and there was a box and he saw. That _fucking polaroid picture_. I should’ve gotten rid of it years ago, I should’ve- You’re an idol. You don’t know pain like I know. No one’s allowed to hit that pretty little face of yours. Even if they knew…”

She’s not making much sense. Her thoughts have always come out in rambling trails of sentences. The implication is made obvious, though, by the dark bruises dotting Solmi’s face. Byul had thought they were from something else but… 

“And that’s why you went to the reporter?” Wheein asks, a little too forcefully. 

Solmi is still shaking, rocking back and forth a little bit. Her heartbeat on the monitor seems to be increasing. “We were never supposed to have this conversation. I wasn’t supposed to see you ever again. That was the plan, right? I just wanted you to lose everything the way I’d lost everything. I wanted you to feel what I felt and everything was supposed to end at the roof it was supposed to end…”

She’s crying now. Fat wet tears that glide across her purple bruises and the bandage on her lip.

Wheein looks horrified. Byul is once again tempted to try and ram herself through the big glass windows. 

It’s hard to hate Solmi. She can’t. Not at all. She can’t make herself hate her any more than she can stop the tears that have started coming out of her own eyes. Wheein’s crying now, too, despite all the anger Byul knows she has towards Solmi for what she did.

It’s hard to face something like this. Not just because she’s her ex, but because there’s that level of _it could’ve been me._ Byul knows both her and Wheein are looking back at all of their previous relationships with guys and thinking _what if_ and hurting in that kind of solidarity that comes only from knowing Solmi’s pain.

“It didn’t work, though,” Solmi whispers, still rocking back and forth. “Obviously.” She gives a bitter laugh. “I’m here now. I guess your member and her boyfriend saved you. Ironic that I’d originally thought _she_ was the one you were dating. Do you know how frustrating it is to see you two do the things you do in public when _one photograph_ ruins my life?”

“I can get you help,” Byul offers. “I can pay for your expenses. Or therapy. I can help you get a job. You probably don’t even remotely deserve any of what I’m offering you, but you didn’t deserve what happened either. It evens out.”

Solmi coughs. “I don’t need your pity.”

“You’ll take it, though,” Wheein says, stepping forward to join Byul. “Because I refuse to let you go the rest of your _very long life_ blaming Byul for ‘ruining’ it. The world is so messed up, I know. But it’s the world we live in, and we have to make the best of it. _Let us help you._ ”

“You should hate me.”

Byul nods. “I should. But I don’t. There’s enough hatred in this world already”

They make arrangements with the hospital for her bill to be payed. Afterwards, her and Wheein sit in the cold, white hospital cafeteria and try to stomach their dinner. Byul examines her new phone case and waits for a text from Solar she knows she isn’t going to get.

“Do you feel better?” Wheein asks. 

Byul still feels shaky. “None of us deserve any of this,” she says. It’s the truest thing she can think of to say. “I wish the world wasn’t the way it is, but... “ She pokes at a piece of meat. “I think the best we can do is keep moving forward.”

From across the table, Wheein gives her a smile. “You must’ve loved her a lot.”

“I did. I think I forgot for a while, but… She was the first person to accept me entirely. It’s hard to stop loving someone like that, even when they hurt you like this.”

Byul has tried very hard for years now not to compare Solar to Solmi. They’re different situations, and different people. Solar is bubbly and reserved, protective, fiercely loyal. Solmi had been broody and outspoken, and she hadn’t been willing to fight for them to stay together when they graduated. 

Still, as she watches Wheein eat her dinner, Byul can’t help but make a comparison to where she was when she was fifteen. Then with Solmi, and now with Wheein, she feels a little less like her insides are slowly being eaten. This time, however, there’s not that level of anger underneath everything. Just acceptance. And that’s all she’s ever wanted.

“We’ve all been pretty unlucky in love,” Wheein agrees. “I think that’s why, now that time has passed, I’m not quite so angry anymore. Yongsunnie deserves to be happy. We all do.”

Byul takes another bite of food. They really should’ve gone to eat at a restaurant instead. That might’ve given off the wrong impression, though. 

“Happiness like theirs is just a little harder for us half the time, though,” Byul says. That gets Wheein laughing. It’s really only funny in a commiserating sort of way. Like eating hospital food together as the sun goes down and hoping that their friend will come home soon.

Wheein’s phone buzzes on the table. She looks up from it smiling. “Hyejin wants to know where we’ve been all day. She says she found a great spot for dinner.”

Byul immediately puts down her fork. “She just saved me from having to pretend to stomach the rest of this. Let’s go.”

Wheein’s still laughing, but she stands up. “Okay,” she says. They walk out the door into the light of the setting sun. The broken strings inside Byul’s heart begin to mend a little.

**___________________________________**

They don’t elope.

Of course, the website that prints the first photos of them at the airport has never cared that much about the truth. They have suitcases. Matching suitcases. (No one bothers to clarify that they got those when they were fake-married on an MBC show half a year ago). And they’re _holding hands._ So obviously Solar is pregnant and they need to get married as fast as possible. 

What really happens: she calls him up, voice shaking, talking about truth and space and air. Solar sounds like her entire body is trembling with an urge to do something drastic. What really happens: he’d already booked one plane ticket and it’s not hard to book two. They already know how to sleep in the same bed together. Her eyes are wide with a strange type of desire when he picks her up. What really happens: **Eric** plays _Run Away With Me_ on repeat in his head as first they leave the city and then the country. No one is quite fast enough to stop them.

The press has always been the fastest and hardest working branch of media, though, and someone at Dispatch was obviously bitter that they weren’t the one to leak their original story, so someone catches them at the airport. They’re hand in hand. Suitcases matching. She’s pouting a little bit. Honestly, Eric would consider the photos on some level of terribly adorable if they weren’t a complete violation of privacy.

It is not his agent who calls him first, as they land on the LA tarmac, but the woman he’d met with after that one party, the hellraiser. “Well,” she says when he picks up. “That’s one way to do things.”

Half an hour of a rushed conversation in a corner of the airport while Solar eats some cross between dinner and breakfast reveals two things. One: half the country thinks they just eloped. Two: his company is less than happy with him.

The last one is something Eric has known for a while. They’ve been “less than happy” since around the time he came to them asking for a R&B comeback. And then the EDM one. And then when he just started releasing music stateside without their permission. Also, purposefully revealing he’s dating someone to the world before telling them didn’t help matters.

“I talked to them,” she announces, towards the end of it, when Solar’s finishing what LAX has decided passes for Chinese food. “They’re willing to consider your original proposal. If, and only if, you stop acting like a petulant teenager.”

“I’m not-” Eric begins, but then he meets Solar’s eyes and they giggle and he realizes this is actually a lot like what he’d imagined skipping class would feel like if he’d ever had the nerve to take Jenny from Calc up on the offer. “Okay,” he manages. “R&B. I can work with that.”

“Also,” she says, and he gets the feeling she’s getting tired of holding up her blackberry to her ear. “Maybe wait a week or so to tell the world that Solar’s not actually pregnant with your unborn child. It’s a ridiculous stretch but your fans are currently fighting your company tooth and nail to treat you better ‘for the baby’s sake’ so…”

“Ah,” Eric nods. Solar scrunches up her face at him, looking down at her empty bowl. “Okay. Will do. 

“What did she say?” Solar asks, when he hangs up. 

Eric takes a seat beside her. The pleather seats are weirdly cold. “She said we should have a good trip. Oh, and make sure your agency knows you’re not pregnant.”

If she hadn’t finished her drink during minute five of the phone call, Eric suspects he would’ve had the pleasure of seeing her spit it out. “What?” Solar asks.

“It’s just people not knowing anything again,” he assures her, trying not to laugh at the entire situation. “It’ll blow over. Besides, Dispatch can’t touch us over here.”

“Do you _want_ kids?” She’s tilted her chair back in a precarious balancing act and her eyes are far too innocent for the question

Eric chokes. “Do I-? _What?_ Can we… can we not have this conversation at four in the morning in an airport.”

Solar narrows her eyes at him. “I just… I know not everyone does. Byulyi doesn’t I don’t think. She mentioned something sometime. People don’t have to, I guess. But… do you?”

There’s a deeper question behind what she’s asking. It lurks in the shadows and he can’t quite make it out. “I guess,” he says. “When everything's said and done and the world won’t like burn me alive for it. Yeah.”

She smiles at that. “Me too.”

“Later though.”

Solar laughs like the world might not end the day they set foot back in Korea. “Later,” she affirms. Then she takes his hand in the middle of the 4 am airport and they make their way to the hotel. 

The stars aren’t quite bright over here, Eric thinks, but they’ll do.

**___________________________________**

Byul doesn’t call her. **Solar** tries not to feel disappointed.

She had left abruptly, after all. In the middle of the night. Cancelled their plans for writing together and thrown it all out the window and she doesn’t regret it, not quite. She just wishes she would call her.

It’s hard, though, Solar supposes, to call when the timezones are so different.

She’d wanted space and now she has it. A whole ocean’s worth of it. California smells like smog and sunshine. For some reason, she’d thought the beaches would be warmer here, but they’re not. They’re just more crowded. Tourists wade in the shallows of the water with bare-it-all swimsuits on and sunburnt skin. The beaches are littered with garbage.

Solar herself isn’t one to suntan - three days isn’t quite enough to adjust to _that_ aspect of California life yet. Instead, she takes to the shore in the early mornings, when it’s not quite crowded yet. It’s colder, though, and when she feels the wind she imagines that it comes all the way from Korea.

She walks along the sand barefoot and feels the grains under the soles of her feet. Sometimes the tide tickles her ankles as she walks. It’s cold, but in a good way. A way that reminds her she’s here and awake and alive.

Half the time, though, Solar feels like she’s still in the hallway with Byul. The world will stop for a second, in the middle of a meal or when she’s watching whatever weird food show is on television (they have _so many_ food shows here) and waiting for Eric to come back from his recording session. She’ll hear the forcefulness of her tone again, how she’d said _who knows_ without any softness whatsoever. 

All she’d ever wanted to know is why she couldn’t know the truth.

She plays a game on her walks, sometimes, when she sees a person. She’ll think _what’s your secret?_ and figure it out in her head and then decide that she’d accept Byul for it anyways. She stops cold in her tracks one day when she sees a woman with dark hair and a baby, almost too young to be a mother. 

Solar knows it’s probably not a baby. Things like that would've been snuffed out by the company before Byul even debuted. Still, it’s the one that makes the most sense in her head. The only thing that feels big enough to fill the space between them is another person. Even if it’s a very small person.

She’s tempted to ask the fancafe what they think about children but that would probably not go over well considering the current state of the media. _It’ll blow over_ , she thinks. 

Instead, she makes her way back to the hotel. Through the lobby and up the elevator and past the room that leads to the gym. They’d gone to the pool the second night. Reveled in the memories of Jeju Island and the anonymity. It had been late and she couldn’t see the stars due to the pollution, but she’d splashed him with water and he’d splashed her back and she’d wondered if this feeling inside of her is what everyone writes their songs about.

The room is a mess, and Solar finds herself rummaging through it, trying to finally put their stuff into the drawers provided and clean up the bed sheets. Eric had laughed when she’d tried to do this earlier, and assured her that the hotel would send someone, but she’d left her guitar and home and her hands need something to do. 

It’s weird, she thinks, how this is how they’ve merged their lives together. It’s not weird eating together or sleeping next to each other anymore - hasn’t been weird since before they even got together - but this, folding each other’s clothes and figuring out day plans, this is a little weird. Not weird in a bad way, so much as weird in an _oh_ kind of way.

It makes it feel real. And, that’s what she’d wanted, after all, isn’t it? She’d wanted to feel real again. Solar had hoped space and time would do that. All it’s really done is make her homesick.

They’ll go home in a few days. When Eric is done recording whatever stateside collab he’s working on this time. She’ll face that mass of cameras with a little more confidence, hopefully. She’ll face Byul with more obvious open arms.

For now though, Solar thinks, hanging up a few of their shirts on the wooden rung of the closet, she’ll have to make do with trying normalcy for a little.

Eric comes back, a whirlwind of his own on this coast. He’s smiling. Eyes bright like the stars were when they first got off the plane. He wraps his arms around her shoulders and Solar lets the infection of his happiness spread through her. 

It’s worth it, almost, to see him like this. It’s worth it. Them together in this hotel room; two almost-empty suitcases, curtains from the 80s, too many white pillows on a bed that sometimes feels too big. 

Solar turns around his arms. She kisses him. He smells like his recording studio - she’d peeked in on the first day - and when she runs her tongue against his lips she tastes powdered sugar. He smiles against her mouth.

“Donuts?” she tries, letting the word roll off her tongue. A little clunkier than it should be. His eyes move to her mouth again and she accepts the kiss greedily before wrapping her hands around to the white bags of sugar he’d placed on the chestnut-colored desk when he came in. A warmth spreads in her belly.

There are violins, she thinks. Not in the hotel but in her head. Somewhere someone’s playing a song that’s not quite _I’ll marry him_ \- because she already did that - but something like _oh, everything is so soft right now._

Solar takes a donut and puts it in her mouth. Eric flops down on the bed and watches her lick powdered sugar off her fingers. The violins keep playing. 

**___________________________________**

On the last night, they drive out of the city and go camping in the hills.

It rains for most of the night. Not to the point of thunder and lightning but to the point that they’re reluctant to leave the tent. **Eric** thinks of the pillow fort he’d made. It’s similar, in a way, but different.

He can hear the raindrops pitter patter on the canvas as he tries to sleep. Solar nudges him every time he’s about to fall into the lull of the pattern, though, and asks him some absurd question about the meaning of life. He laughs every time. He can’t help it.

They sleep around midnight. His phone goes off at 4:30 in the morning with some dumb notification that he’d meant to assign for a different day. There’s irony in the timing, almost. The first rays of the sun are beginning to come over the hills when she opens the flap of the tent.

Solar steps out, accidentally slipping out of one of her shoes. She sheds the other one, too, and moves into the damp grass. He has an urge to warn her, to stop her, but there’s no reason behind it. Just the anxiety that’s been shooting through his veins ever since that reporter stopped him in the coffee shop. There’s no reporters around for miles, though.

Eric follows her into the grass. He’s barefoot too. The blades tickle the soles of his feet. He tries to catch up to Solar but she’s always a few paces ahead of him until finally she stops, at the top of the hill.

Neither of them have ever been good dancers, but Eric’s halfway to taking that statement back when he sees her spin around, face up towards the sky.

It’s slow, the way she moves. And it might be deliberate too, maybe, if it didn’t look so unrehearsed. The rain is soft around them and she is soft in the light and he thinks that maybe the sun could wait a little bit before it came up fully. 

When she turns her hair is illuminated by the sunrise. She’s smiling, too. Like there’s some connection with her other half after all, like they’re quite possibly one and the same.

He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. She smiles. It’s simple. 

“Let’s not go back just yet,” she says, voice low and soft, the sun on the horizon. “Let’s stay and watch the sunrise.”

He kisses her then, quiet and fierce. Her hair is wet from the rain and he suspects his is too, but the water makes him feel alive. She kisses him back, in a longing sort of way, in a _I wish we could stay like this forever_ sort of way. Her lips are soft, like they always are. He breathes in the freedom around them like it’s the last time he ever will. 

He’d helped her braid flowers into her hair, earlier, when they’d stopped for lunch and there had been tiny white buds on the side of the road, and the knots catch on his fingers now. She’s overwhelming - soft and hard and incredibly sweet. Her fingertips dig into his neck.

Her phone buzzes.

They both hear it. It ruins the moment, a little bit. Solar pulls away and tilts her head down to the glowing screen. _Hyejin_. She picks up, turning away from him, and Eric watches her talk for a few minutes, only hearing bits and pieces of the conversation.

“They… they went where? _Why?_ I just… Okay… But, the secrets, Hyejinie, all the secrets. Why can’t we all just be truthful with each other?”

That’s the real question she’s been asking the whole time they’ve been here together. Not in so many words, but in little things. She’s asked him for so many stories, about his life and his childhood. “Tell me all your secrets.” It was teasing, but he knew. 

That doesn’t mean he told her the ones that weren’t his to tell, though. He knows that things aren’t as black and white as Solar is making them out to be. He meant what he said to Byul on the phone, though; she’d understand.

The conversations that they’ve had with strangers over here have been enough to solidify that is his mind.

There’d been this one couple of older women. They’d met them when they went to see a soccer match a few days ago. They’d sat with them and Eric had asked how they’d met and they’d told them their love story. Solar had seemed almost enamored with it. Not their relationship itself, but the idea of a long and happy ending. No matter who it was for.

Eric likes to think that’s all she wants for anyone.

“We’re coming back,” she announces to Hwasa, and the words almost startle Eric just by the determination in them. “Yeah, our plane leaves tonight. Tonight LA time. I’ll come back and we’ll… I’ll fix everything somehow…. I don’t care if it’s not all my fault, I _know_ it’s not but what kind of leader would I be…?”

There are times, however, if Eric wonders if it’s not the secret itself but the fight that surrounds it that might break the trust and friendship he sees within their group. The way she talks sounds like the way Amber would talk when Sulli was thinking of leaving f(x). Like a transition to co-workers. Like what the end of We Got Married was supposed to be for them.

“Okay,” Solar finishes. “I’ll see you soon. Goodnight…. Good morning…. I love you too.”

When she hangs up the two of them look in the direction of their rental car. Eric’s almost against the idea of giving up the freedom it represents. 

“Well,” he says. “Time to remind the world that you’re not about to have a baby.”

She laughs at that, but her mind seems somewhere else. “Yes!” Solar exclaims. “And then get tteokbokki.”

“And make up with Byul.”

She looks at the ground, at their bare feet on the American soil. The sun is fully risen now. “I’m trying,” she whispers. “Can’t everyone see that? I’m trying.”

Eric doesn’t say anything, just takes her hand. She smiles a little. It’s the last time things feel truly quiet for a while.

**___________________________________**

She comes back in a quiet rush of wind. 

The door to the apartment opens. Cold air comes in. **Byul** looks up from her breakfast and finds Solar standing in the doorway, coat covered in water droplets and long hair kind of messed up. The space between them feels thick, full of water and unsaid things. Eric’s voice echoes in her head - _You should tell her. She’d understand_. 

Her eyes look guilty, like she knows what her disappearing act has done to them. Her hand grips the handle of her suitcase, knuckles white, and it hits Byul for the first time that maybe she’s scared too. That makes more sense than the other explanation she’d come up with in her head for her running away, going so far far away from her. The one where she hated her, had always hated her, and would only hate her more once she found out the truth. The irrational one.

“Hey,” Solar tries, and she is _trying_ , at the very least. Speaking first and everything. “I’m sorry I left like that.”

Her first instinct is to assure her that it’s okay, to go back to eating and sit and make small talk about the trip, but she just can’t. Everything isn’t okay. She suspects it hasn’t been okay in a while. Since before Eric came into the picture, even. 

Instead, Byul tries an apology of her own. “I’m sorry I pushed you to leave,” she says, because she’s thought it over and it _feels_ like it was her fault. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.”

Solar lets out a puff of air. Maybe a sigh. “It wasn’t the yelling that bothered me, Byulyi. We yell at each other all the time it’s just… You shouldn’t feel like you have to lie to me. About anything.”

Her hand begins to shake. Byul hopes Solar doesn’t notice the way her spoon is slightly rattling against her bowl. “It’s more complicated than that,” she tries, but she knows it’s not enough. “It’s… how could you understand this…”

“I’ll understand it! Whatever it is!”

The assurance doesn’t relieve her like she thought it would, though. Everything in Byul still feels as tense as before, if not more. “Maybe it’s not you then…” she starts. “Maybe I’m just not ready to tell anyone.”

_“Wheein knows._ ”

The Wheein situation is different. Byul never had to come out and _say_ anything specific to her. She just kind of… understood. Without asking. She just knew. Byul knows that’s a little too much to ask of Solar. 

“Wheein figured it out on her own.”

Solar frowns, obviously frustrated. “Is it a baby?” she asks.

Byul chokes. “What? A… Aren’t _you_ the one who’s supposed to be pregnant? Not me? Speaking of secrets…”

“Oh, you know I’m not. That’s just people not understanding things. You know you’d be the first one I told, don’t you? I know I’m not that for you, but…”

“It’s not a baby.” She cuts her off. Not ready to have this conversation right now. “And, like I said. It’s not about you… I mean. It is, in a way. But it’s mostly about me and- What I’m trying to say is I’m glad you’re back.”

Solar nods, a little bitterly. “But you’re not going to tell me. Even after all this, you still don’t trust me enough.”

“It’s not-”

“No, no, I get it. Don’t worry. Take your time. I’ll prove to you that you can trust me. Until then… they want us in the recording studio in three hours.”

“Yongsunnie-”

She’s gone before Byul can even call out her name. The door is still open, though. A quiet sheet of rain falls outside. Like the large glass windows at the hospital. For a second she has to wonder if Solar was even really here, or just a phantom created by the bad weather.

Byul stands up and closes the door. She forgets to clean up her breakfast.


	4. part iv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solar misses her friend. Byul creates clarity. Eric fights back. Wheein buys a bracelet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are folks. Four days, four parts. We have reached the end.  
> Thanks to all the great feedback. I really was not expecting that many people to read this - you can tell I definitely didn't write it with larger fandom in mind - so every little kudos and comment has made me very happy. Here's to a happy ending. Well, maybe not a _happy_ ending because, even within fic, the world is not easily fixed, but happy for now. Thanks for enjoying the ride. Looks like these past five months of me obsessing over like, plot structure and characterization and music has been worth it.
> 
> Once again, the playlist for this fic is [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/readingqueen811/playlist/7L50BDkfX5l9UOSgKAecEW). I'd recommend listening to it, especially Strawberry Blonde with that Wheein section at the end. I think the tone matches up pretty well. :)

part iv

_and i / say your name / in hopes you’ll hear it in the stars_

carry me out by mitski

**___________________________________**

It is two days into the construction of their new album when **Solar** takes on the belief that she may have some control over the weather. It could be her name, possibly: the _sol-_ and the _-sun_ and the current feeling like she’s not quite herself that has created the clouds that flood the sky. Dark and grey, smokey-colored but not caused from any flame - she knows, she checked. They linger above Seoul, a heavy presence in an otherwise warm month. And, at night, they cover up the stars.

It’s poetic irony, she supposes, that the sun and the stars are so intertwined.

The nights are by far the worst. Solar scribbles over words she’d written in another state of mind and tries to find peace within her whirring mind. The greyness of winter that permeates the early summer catches her off guard, though - a surprisingly melancholy scent in the air. She cannot sleep.

On night two of day two of the clouds, Eric calls. They talk and talk about nothing in particular until Solar, rather hastily, confesses her insomnia.

“Don’t hang up just yet,” she says, and turns over in her bed to face the digital clock on her bedside table. “I can’t sleep anyways.”

It’s not as if either of them are promoting, but their breaks are over now, and sleep should be a thrumming kind of need after all the album prep. Solar feels the need for it in her head and behind her eyes, but her mind can’t seem to find it. 

“Did you drink that tea my mother recommended?”

She looks towards her empty cup. “Twice already.”

Eric makes a noise on the other end. “Maybe you should go see someone. Not even a doctor but like, an acupuncturist or something at least.” 

Another headache rolls in, dissipating as fast as it appears. Solar puts her free hand to her head. “I’m fine,” she assures him. “I’ll be fine, eventually. I just need to keep working… for the team.”

Eric sighs. “I know you love them, but you’re important individually too. Working through the night isn’t going to fix things with Byulyi any more than sleeping will.”

She knows this. She’s familiar with how the previous night’s insomnia had lead to irritation that permeated every conversation she had with her today. She knows it’ll only be worse tomorrow. And yet, it’s these exact thoughts that won’t let her sleep. They race on, through the night, only slightly soothed by the sound of his voice.

Solar hums in response.

“How’s the album, though?” Eric asks, obviously trying to steer the conversation away from the sensitive topic of her withering friendship.

Solar stares up at her ceiling. “I have this song in my head,” she says, and tries to remember the sound of the chorus. “But it keeps rewriting itself. It won’t let me catch it. How about you?”

He sings something quietly on the other end. Or maybe it’s just the sound of the city. “I’ve had my songs for a long time,” Eric says. “They’ve just been waiting for a chance to be recorded. It feels freeing, somehow, to sing them out loud.”

“I haven’t tried that yet,” Solar murmurs, reaching for the thoroughly inked piece of paper that contains her lyrics. She looks at them, squints in the dim light, and begins to read the lines out loud, more poem than song, since she’s still unsure about notes and chords.

The words tumble off her tongue, smelling like eucalyptus and lavender, with all the rhythmic qualities of a lullaby. It’s only afterwards that a ghost of sleep flutters over Solar, her eyelids growing heavy. The space behind her jaw gets soft. 

“It’s pretty,” Eric whispers, voice quieter than usual on the other end. He doesn’t say much after that.

“There’s no rap part yet,” Solar confesses. “I can’t write it without thinking of her, of how she’d say it. Of how she’d write it so much better than I would. And even then I can’t show the song to her because I’m scared she’ll hate it.”

There’s still no response. The night is a quiet hum. Solar checks the window. The stars are still covered by thick grey cotton. “I’m trying my hardest,” she says, finally, into the night, not even sure if he’s still awake. “I’m trying my hardest but she just won’t let me in.”

Usually she feels an incredible amount of safe here, wrapped in her blankets, a movie on in front of her. Now, though, she just feels so cut off, like she’s floating. Like, despite the weight of her comforter, she’s going to drift away from everyone any minute.

She’s jutted out of her own journey to sleep when his voice answers on the other end. “All you can do is try,” he assures her, but she doesn’t feel assured. “I’m not saying give up. She means too much to you to do that. But stop beating yourself up over things you can’t control. She’ll tell you… whatever it is she needs to tell you, when she’s ready.”

He always seems to make so much sense when it’s late like this. Or maybe it’s just that her sleep-addled brain can picture him beside her just from the sound of his voice and it’s the magic of that that convinces her of his words. It’s weird how easily the image comes to her, despite the fact that they haven’t been lying face to face since LA. There had been the couch, the picnic blanket, but nothing that quite resembles closeness like this does. 

“I wish it didn’t burn like this,” Solar confesses. “The feeling. Like I ate something bad. Or too fast. I don’t know how to lose her.”

“You won’t lose her,” Eric assures her. For a second, she’s tempted to believe him, with all the optimism of a child. It should be healing. It is, in its own way. But it’s not enough. It won’t be enough in the morning, when she goes into the studio with her new songs and tries to get Byul to, just once, look her in the eye.

“You should sleep,” Solar says. Her eyes glance nervously at the digital clock, the time far too later for either of them to really be awake. “I’ll be okay.”

She hears Eric move on the other end. “Are you sure?”

Solar nods, despite knowing he can’t see her move. “I’m sure,” she whispers. 

It’s only after he hangs up that she realizes the room has finally grown quiet. Solar finds sleep half an hour later, hunched over her notebook, messing with the piano app on her phone and trying to find her song.

**___________________________________**

**Eric** was really expecting more of an outrage at their return.

Not from his company, or her company, or the media masses at large as they try to clear up the whole pregnancy thing, but from Solar’s members. He was at least expecting a passive aggressive text from Byul or some vague Instagram post from Hwasa.

Nothing comes, however. A whole week of absolutely nothing goes by. In a way, he thinks their silent treatment is worse than if they’d said anything at all. He can’t help but wonder if, in saying yes when Solar asked him to take her away, in letting her run away from her problems the same way he tends to run away from his, he ruined some chance he’d had to get close to her members.

And then, almost exactly a week after their feet land on the tarmac in Korea, he gets a direct message from the Mamamoo Instagram account that simply says:

_Buy me lunch. That Mexican place you guys went on the show. I want to talk_

_-WI_

Wheein, out of all the girls, was always the one who seemed least excited about his relationship with Solar. For a while he’d wondered if he’d messed things up somehow that first time on ASC. Or the recording after that, when he’d sang and she’d cheered a little bit. 

He asks her about it, when they sit down, in a half-joking manner. Something along the lines of “how much do you hate me?” Something utterly unconfident and unlike himself but he figures he’d better humble himself to the one girl who’s not giving him the silent treatment.

Wheein laughs more easily than Eric had thought she would. Like Solar, almost anything sets her off. Still, it takes him off guard when she hits his arm in response to his question. “I don’t hate you,” she promises. “At first - last spring - I was scared of what you would do to her. And then later, in the fall, what you wouldn’t.” She sighs. “Now I just… I just want everything to stop shifting, you know?”

“Shifting?” Eric asks, after they order.

“The group dynamic changed,” she explains. “Or maybe it was always changing and we just didn’t notice until recently. Byulyi, Yongsunnie… you, me. If I had to name one definite relationship in my life right now outside of my family it would be Hyejin. Everything else seems… undefinable.”

Eric gulps. “Did I- Did I cause this shifting?” He looks away in anticipation of the answer.

Wheein shakes her head. “You’re not the cause,” she says. “Just… correlation, not causation, you know? This would’ve happened eventually if you were in our lives or not. At least this way I get to see Yongsunnie happy in the midst of it.”

He doesn’t ask exactly what shifted it, then. It’s probably - definitely - not his business, despite Wheein including him in her _group._ He’s had ideas about it for months, really. From before _Kim Yongsun_ meant anything to him, even. Some ever-growing symptom of the industry that he’d always disliked. It’s not up to him to fix it, or be jealous even. It’s just… a thing.

“They’ll work it out, I think,” Eric says, and even though he doesn’t specifically say _Moonbyul and Solar_ , the thought of them is thick in the air around their table on the patio.

Wheein frowns. “It’s just, Byulyi she’s trying so hard to be strong, and I just wish… I wish she’d let herself fall apart like the rest of us. It won’t be the same as before but it could be better, maybe, if she’d let it be better. If that’s even what she _considers_ better, I-”

“You care,” Eric notices. Wheein narrows her eyes at him from behind her dark bangs. 

“ _Of course I care_ ,” she says, but they both know that’s not how he meant it.

They eat silently, at first, when the food arrives. With a few words in between to help get her familiar with how to eat tacos and which sauce is the best. Little meaningless things like that. 

It’s only when a song comes on, an old hit from when they both hadn’t debuted yet, that Wheein brings up their careers. 

“The press storm is dying down,” Eric tells her. “But… I don’t think they’ll ever quite leave us alone.”

“Watch,” Wheein says. “In a few weeks they’ll have moved on to the next plastic surgery scandal or partier. Idol relationships are a dime a dozen. If it were a different story, though…”

They both think of Byul. “Yeah,” Eric says.

“Do you really think you can do it?” Wheein asks, and Eric has to look up from his lunch. 

“Do what?” he asks.

Wheein’s not looking at him, but somewhere behind him. Possibly the plant that his head accidentally keeps hitting. “Get past this. Make things work. Make it in America. I don’t know. _It._ ” She digs one of her fingernails into the soft wood of the table. “That crazy thing we all want.”

Eric has to think about it. It’s not that he doesn’t believe he has the potential to do _it._ He’d like to think that everyone has the potential to. It’s just sometimes there are bad circumstances. Debuts with the wrong song. Collaborations with the wrong band. Agencies that pull you around by the strings they’d tied around you when you were young and more naive until you’ve convinced yourself every movement is your own idea. He’s heard Ailee talk about it, and Amber, and even Jessica one time, when she and Eddie had lunch with him in New York.

“I wanna try,” he tells Wheein, finally. “What’s the use if we don’t try?” 

Wheein examines him for a moment, eyes finally meeting his, before finally reaching for her limeade. “Wow,” she says, right before the liquid reaches her mouth. “You really are something, Eric Nam.”

“Is that a blessing from you,” he asks, and he sees her glare at him from over her water glass.

Wheein sets the glass down with mock-seriousness. “Don’t hurt our kid-leader,” she says. “Let us know next time you two decide to run away and stuff. And Eric..”

“Yeah?”

“Good luck.”

There are some times, Eric thinks, when Wheein looks her age. When she’s drowning in an oversized sweater or hoodie, when her bangs are short and she’s teasing her members. Then there are moments like this, moments where her eyes get deadly serious and there seems to be a wisdom about her far beyond what he remembers having at her age. 

“Thank you,” he tells her, and he means it. “You should try too, you know. Reach for the stars and all that.”

Wheein laughs. “That’s a terrible pun. I take it back. I take it all back. You and your puns are never allowed around Yongsunnie again. You’re a _bad_ _influence._ ”

“I’m serious,” Eric manages, through his own laughter.

She nods, once the giggles have settled down. “I will try _phenomenally_ ,” Wheein promises. “But if her definition of a resolution isn’t the same as mine I’m not going to push it.”

“Who knows?” he asks. “Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

**___________________________________**

Hwasa sits them all down for drinks and food two weeks after **Solar** returns from LA. “Eat,” she orders. “And talk. We haven’t talked about anything but the new album in a week and I’m sick of it.”

Solar has a feeling that Wheein’s behind the plan, too, but she can’t quite read her. She hasn’t been able to since she returned. She’s guarded, somehow, in a way she’d expected from Byul but not from her and it hurts more than Solar had ever expected it would. She hates feeling like they’re trainees again, like the kids have had to take sides in their fight. Only, this time, Solar has no idea what they’re fighting about.

She’d thought she did. She’d walked into Byul’s apartment with a clear picture in her head and forgiveness at her disposal and walked out more confused than ever. She tried to put it down to paper, too, since the album is all they’re living and breathing right now, but the words just wouldn’t flow through her pen. 

However, only one drink in, and Solar finds words flowing out of her more easily than ever. Also, she’s a little bit exhausted. But she’s not sure if that’s from the drink or just the work.

Byul still isn’t meeting her eyes. Only a flicker here and there. For the most part, she keeps her gaze focused on Wheein, and sometimes Hwasa. It’s frustrating. And terrible. And tiring.

“They haven’t gotten a kiss yet,” Solar announces, kind of proudly, of Dispatch. “Isn’t that funny? People get money off of something like that.” She laughs. “And here I am, still getting used to the feeling.”

Hwasa smiles, dark lipstick slightly smudged from the eating and drinking. “I haven’t been kissed in so long.”

Wheein nods. “We’re so busy. There’s no time. Unless you’re like Yongsunnie and smart enough to make love your job.”

Solar wouldn’t necessarily say it was _smart._ If she was smart she would’ve ignored that rush of heat that accompanied his touch in Dubai, and that thing her heart would do when she saw him. She gave up on _smart_ a long time ago. Right now she’s just content with _happy._

“I can barely remember the last time,” Wheein sighs. “Isn’t that absolutely tragic?”

Hwasa waves a hand empathetically, taking another bite of food. She swallows and then asks “Was it the balloon guy?”

Solar wracks her brain for any mention of a _balloon guy_ and can’t find one. Her and Wheein have never been sleepover-secret-sharers the way the maknaes have, but she thought she’d known all of the people she’d dated. 

“What balloon guy?” Byul asks, and Solar immediately whips her head around to face her. She looks bothered, for some reason, eyebrows furrowed. Maybe she didn’t know either.

Wheein shakes her head. “No, no, it was after him. At that concert we went to I think. The one with all the rings. Remember?”

Solar does not remember. Solar definitely does not remember. And she’s sure she’s met all of Wheein’s boyfriends since they were trainees.

Hwasa laughs. “Oh yeah. Him. Was it worth the 11,000 won?”

Wheein makes a suggestive face. “And then some.”

“ _Okay,_ ” Solar interrupts. “I am too old for this kind of talk. Save your poor grandmother’s ears.”

“You’re not even _thirty_ yet,” Hwasa points out. “But okay, Yong-grandmother. You have to tell us your last kiss, though.”

Solar covers her face with her hands. “It’s boring,” she assures them. “We’re very boring.”

Hwasa pouts. “But it’s how the game works. You have to tell us. We’re _bonding_ , remember?”

“Fine,” Solar says, but she doesn’t remove her hands from over her eyes. “Yoondo dropped me off and kissed me goodnight a few days ago. Does that satisfy you?”

She smirks. “Immensely. Okay, Byulyi, your turn.”

Byul blinks a few times, like she can’t quite register the question she was just asked. “I don’t- I honestly don’t remember. It was too long ago.”

Solar doesn’t think she can quite remember either. Do the four of them really not discuss their dating lives that often? Is she really this out of touch with their kissing habits?

“You go then, Hyejin,” Wheein declares. “Your last kiss.”

“Zico,” Hwasa says, only to burst out laughing at all of their dumbstruck faces. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. It was back when we were still trainees. A guy who goes to the same church as me. We went on a few dates but it didn’t really work out.”

“Wow.” Wheein swirls around her drink with a star. “We really do have quite boring lives, don’t we?”

Solar would hardly consider the last few months _boring._ But, to be fair, it’s not like they’re out pulling stunts with stolen cars or going clubbing every night. The most exciting thing she’s done recently was elope, and even that was just a story. It’s the hidden turbulence, though, she thinks, that’s the most impactful.

Byul’s looking at Wheein when Solar goes to try and make eye contact with her again. “You kissed a guy for a dare?” Byul asks, and something in her voice sounds a little rough around the edges.

“It was a long time ago, Byulyi,” Wheein says. “I was still a kid.”

Things get kind of quiet after that. They finish their food with little to no conversation about dating or kissing or anything they’d been talking about before. Solar brings up the music video concepts the company was thinking of. None of them seem all that excited about it. She’d honestly rather do something with a message than anything else, but she’s not sure she has anything to say.

Hwasa pays the bill, making a joke about her endless supply of money that they all know can’t really exist. Solar laughs, but her stomach isn’t in it. The clouds above them look like a storm might be coming soon.

_Maybe the rain will wash everything away_ , she thinks. And then she writes it down.

**___________________________________**

**Byul** and Wheein take the longest to leave the restaurant. Possibly because, as they’re exiting, they get caught behind this fairly large extended family who seem to be there to celebrate a birthday party, and have to wait a few minutes as they block the door trying to ask the hostess where the rest of their group is. 

The two of them give each other a look as they finally decide to take the back entrance out, and laugh a little when they step outside. The alleyway is made of two brick walls and a lot of trash cans. Somewhere above them, a laundry line whistles in the breeze.

“Do you really not remember your last kiss?” Wheein asks, and Byul finds herself drawn to the way the strings of her hoodie swing as they walk. “Or did you just not want to say it in front of them?”

Byul pauses, stopping just short of the alley’s intersection. She wracks her brain, thinking of some after party another reject SM trainee had invited her to, of a guy who smelled like apricots and an overwhelming desire to try and fix herself. “It was after Solmi,” she says, and finds a need to press her hand against the brick wall. “But before I met you. But I don’t really remember it, no.”

“What would you say - hypothetically, of course - if you were asked it on TV, like for a variety show?”

There’s a question behind Wheein’s glassy eyes. Her mouth is not quite a frown but not quite a smile either - rose-petal lips pressed together in a quiet concentration. Byul sighs, and assumes her television persona. 

“I haven’t had time for things like kissing since I was a trainee, but who knows in the future?” She winks, a little boldly, at the nonexistent camera hovering at the opposite end of the alley and Wheein dissolves into a pit of giggles.

“You didn’t have to do it _like that_.” There’s a flash of her dimple in her smile.

“Okay then. You try it, Miss Aegyo.” 

Wheein gives a little bow and obliges, turning on her cutest voice and doing some routine she must’ve gotten from the internet that makes Byul feel some sort of stupid. She reaches to tickle her at the end of it, only to pause, breath held, when her rings clink against the little plastic parts at the end of Wheein’s hoodie. Byul rolls one of the strings between her middle and index fingers, suddenly fascinated by it. Wheein’s gaze burns from below.

“That’s so many years, though, Byulyi,” Wheein murmurs, voice a high kind of quiet. “Isn’t it?”

Byul nods. “So many.” She still can’t meet her eyes, so she closes them instead. Somewhere in between her ribs something’s smoking. She lets out a slow breath, almost a whistle. Wheein’s mouth is on hers soon after the aching begins.

She kisses her tentatively. Not at all the quick-get-it-over-with rush that Byul would’ve expected from her. Not that she thinks about kissing Wheein. Or anything. She can’t respond, can’t breathe, can’t move, so she just stands there, still as the bricks in the wall beside her, and wishes she could give her someone else instead. A consolation prize. 

_You don’t want me,_ some voice in her head whispers. _Not this one. This one’s damaged._

Wheein’s hands are on her shoulders, a soft shadow of their dance from weeks earlier. She tastes like meat and alcohol. Every sweet bit of what they were just eating. When she pulls away, Byul feels the soft graze of teeth on her lower lip.

_I’m sorry_ , she wants to say. And _I would’ve if I could’ve._ And _it’s not that I don’t want you._ And a billion other phrases that never leave her mouth. 

Instead, Byul says “You’re drunk” because it’s easy and true and a convenient excuse for whatever regrets Wheein might have tomorrow. 

“This isn’t about Yongsunnie?” Wheein asks. She doesn’t seem angry just… confused, maybe? 

Byul shakes her head.

“That’s all I needed to know.”

She walks away, out of the alley, and Byul follows a few paces behind her, reeling with every terrible thing she’s ever heard about what it means to feel this way. She’d thought for a moment, in that dark room with the guy who tasted like apricots, that maybe she’d be able to ignore it. But, in that moment, she’d thought of Solmi, of the face her first best friend had made when she’d told her the truth. All she’d ever really felt in that dark room was lonely.

That night Byul lies awake until she thinks she can see stars on her ceiling. They blink and dance around with all the agility of small children. She puts a pillow over her head.

**___________________________________**

The rain is kind of relentless.

It pours its way through Seoul like it’s trying to prove something. **Eric** supposes, considering the month, it might have a reason. He doesn’t mind the drip drip that comes from outside his apartment window, though. It’s a light sound. A new sound. A sound of summer.

It helps, too, that Solar’s over on the piano, playing a light sort of melody to accompany the rain. She’s no Henry, but the sound is still something he thinks he might just live and die by. He would, too, if she’d just let him.

“Are you writing something?” he asks, and she crinkles her nose at him but continues playing. 

“I think so,” Solar says. “Maybe. I’ve been working on it for so long now that I’m not sure if it’ll ever become something real. But it’s halfway here, at least.” Her fingers tickle over the high notes. He wonders what the lyrics sound like.

Eric sits down next to her. “Can I help?” he asks, and she nods. His fingers join hers on the piano. He listens to the melody she’s repeating, and adds his own notes here and there. Then, once he’s gotten the hang of it, she pulls out her notebook, and begins to write things down.

“See,” she explains. “I’ve already got the guitar part. And the lyrics, mostly. The piano has just been giving me so much trouble. I’ve had a hard time touching mine since we came back.”

He frowns. “I thought things were okay now?”

“They are,” she assures him. “But every time I sit down over there, it’s like I’ve forgotten how to play. Like I have to learn all over again.”

“And you don’t have that problem here?”

“I do.” She scribbles down one of his new notes on her paper. “But it’s easier with you next to me.”

His shoulder brushes hers as he tries some chords out. She’s playing the tinkling melody, and he follows the echoes and hollows of it until he finds a chord that might work. Solar smiles when one of his attempts is successful. The sound rings through the air. Eric catches her lips with a kiss.

They haven’t had a lot of time to do this recently. To sit next to each other and just _be_. Their only excuse now is that Eric has a piano and Solar’s mind has been scattered for weeks. They’re both working, technically. Technically kissing is counting as working. It’s almost like being on the show together all over again.

“You’re silly,” she says, scrunching her nose up, when he pulls away. She flicks his forehead, taking one hand off of the piano. His hand accidentally hits a few resounding low notes when her finger hits him. Somehow, it sounds right.

Solar immediately turns to look at his fingers. She squints her eyes at them and then scribbles down the notes on her hand. “Keep doing that,” she orders, and he obeys, repeating the chord in a steady rhythm until she changes keys.

The floor of her apartment is cold. It’s weird for May, he thinks, for his feet to feel this cold, but the piano is a curtain of shadow and the sun hasn’t been shining all that much recently. May is, so far, a month of rain. Of blue-grey skies the color of his college dorm room. Eric curls his toes in at the pinch of the temperature. He does not ask for her to turn the heat up.

The song sounds a little like starlight, or raindrops, a little like it’s written with something in mind. Although, whether the something is a night on a roof or dripping rain at an airport or even a person is something he can’t quite tell. She won’t show him the lyrics. “To be honest,” she confesses, an hour into their piano session. “I’m not even sure if I know them myself.”

Eric’s been there, stuck holding onto the whisper of prose. There’s something steadily burning under there, he can feel it, but every time he reaches for the coals he only finds heat. Not so much these days, but before. Now he has too many songs in his head to count. Too many things that have never seen the light of day, much less the minds of anyone else.

They whoosh around in his, though. Always a little too fast to catch. Always a little too soft to grasp.

Solar’s eyes get big when she’s concentrating. Big round imitations of the hidden sun outside. Focused, laser-like on the page in front of her, staccato rhythms dancing across with all the perfect synchronicity of an SM boy group. The kind of synchronicity neither of them have ever quite been able to achieve in their own dancing.

Maybe it’s for the best that they’ve never ended up quite as manufactured-seeming as their co workers. There’s living in their lives. Their specific facades have, at the very least, never involved the need to look robotic. Just the most alive possible. Times like this, though, when there’s no one around but the two of them, the energy is less intense. They don’t get to live quietly as often as they’d like to.

“What are you going to call it?” Eric asks.

Solar pulls her hands away from the piano and leans her head on his shoulder. “Faces, maybe,” she tells him. “Or What I Can.”

Eric smiles. “Any particular reason?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. They just sound right.”

**___________________________________**

“The cliche thing to do would be to blame my parents, I guess.”

It’s a bad introduction. **Byul** knows this even before the words leave her mouth, as she runs her fingers around the square edges of the white chair she’s sitting in, rings on her fingers pulling at the strong seam of the fabric.

The lady - the _therapist_ she’d been recommended - steals a glance up at her from her clipboard when she finally speaks. She’s got dark eyes behind thick glasses. Byul thinks it’s a bit frustrating how she seems to be surrounded by things made of glass these days.

“Or I could blame _her_.” The therapist writes something down. “But that wouldn’t be fair. I know that. _Wheein_ knows that. Even you know that. Probably. Because it’s not her fault and she’s not even the first girl I’ve ever loved. That’s a different box of shattered things. I don’t know. I know I should tell her but. I just don’t want her to hate me. Or pity me.”

The woman across from her pushes her glasses up and rests her elbows on the desk between them. She’s wearing a nicely ironed pinstriped blouse that makes Byul feel slightly underdressed. Is there a dress code for therapy? She didn’t think there would be one. These days she’s only slightly aware of the rules of the world, though.

“What makes you think she would pity you?”

The ring on her pinky finger catches on the seam again. “Who wouldn’t? It’s a pitiful thing, loving someone. Especially this way. I feel manipulated and… weirdly violated and- Guilty. The internet says that can be a side effect, though.”

She purses her lips. “Manipulated how?” the therapist asks. “Did she do anything to make you assume or… Settle down Moon Byulyi, I promise nothing leaves this room.”

Byul sighs. She finds herself staring out the window. It’s beginning to really be hot now. Sticky sweaty overbearingly hot. “It’s this industry, I guess. This _goddamn_ industry. They want you with someone who can’t love you, but not really. Never _really._ And then when you do fall for someone in the way they’ve been hinting you get punished and-” She leans back in her chair, spine arching over the white cushions, and stares at the ceiling. It’s hot. “I don’t know.”

She doesn’t get an answer to that. Just more scribbling on the clipboard. Byul supposes that’s what happens eventually when you’re a therapist for idols; one day the word “manipulated” just stops being quite so shocking anymore.

Finally her therapist looks back up again. Her baby heel clicks on the floor. “Could you elaborate on that?” she asks. “Not the industry, but the falling. How you’re feeling.”

“She kissed me the other day. Not Yongsun. But Wheein. Just out of the blue and I guess I saw it coming but- Right. Feeling. I feel… lost. Drifting, you could say.”

“Drifting?”

She twists one of her rings around the finger, trying not to mind the pull of the metal against her tired skin. “One part of me feels a little worthless. Like a soda can discarded on the side of the road. But I’ve felt that way for so long and I’m kind of tired of feeling it. Like write a song and get over it already, you know?”

Byul wonders if she’s even still paying attention at this point or if she’s doodling something on that clipboard. They’re both silent for a moment.

“What about the other parts of you? How do they feel?”

“ _You have entered level three,_ ” she tries, in a robot impression that fails spectacularly. Her therapist looks more than a little horrified. Right. She’ll keep the humor to a minimum then. “I feel distant, too,” Byul clarifies. “I’m not the girl I was when I debuted anymore. I also can kind of maybe see a future, if the world wasn’t so terrible.”

The future vision is hazy. It begins in a field. With a guitar and a tree with leaves made of notebook paper full of all the songs she’s ever written. Some of the leaves turn brown and crumble into ash, some glow brighter and Byul climbs the tree, desperate to follow the path. Everything crumbles before she can ever reach the top, but sometimes she thinks she hears Wheein laughing up there. If she looks down she can see Solar and Eric, dolls in a pre-made house.

“I’m sure you’ve already heard this,” her therapist tentatively begins. “But the world is always going to be just the way that it is now. I would say my goal here is to help you learn to live in it.”

“So you’re saying there’s no room for change or improvement or hope?”

“No, what I’m saying is that waiting around never got anybody anywhere. Take some time for yourself, if you need. That’s not waiting; that’s productive healing. But when it comes to your personal relationships, is there a chance that you would change the way you’re approaching anything if you knew that there might not be a better chance than the present?”

_I would’ve kissed her back._ It’s the first through that crosses her mind, and then it’s gone before she can really process the terrifying capacity of it. Doors are supposed to be closed before you can open another one, right? She feels like she has to deal with the _Solar_ mess she’s in before she can even think about the _Wheein_ one, but…

That night, in the studio, when they’d been waltzing, she’d felt sanctuary for the first time in a while. And then something else, something warmer under the surface, when they’d talked about kissing.

Suddenly, Byul slams her eyes shut, having stumbled upon a part of her mind where she rarely wanders. Or, if she does, it’s with eyes half-closed, not fully taking in the tremendousness of everything around her. “I’m scared,” she admits, and the words feel like release.

Her therapist’s voice is soft, tentative. “Scared of what?”

“Myself, I think… This part of me. The part that wanted Yongsun and the part that now might want- It’s what hurt Solmi. It’s what put this distance between Yongsunnie and I. It’s… it’s going to ruin everything all over again.”

The woman in front of her has pitying eyes. Big and dark. Like a kitten in the rain. That’s how she’d met Solmi - bent over a kitten in the rain, playing with it next to the gutter. “Byulyi,” she begins. “It’s important you know that there is nothing wrong about what you feel. Love is not poison. It cannot ruin the people you care about. If it did then I’m fairly sure there are more than a few drama stars whose lives I would’ve ruined already.”

Somehow, that gets a laugh out of her. It bubbles, quietly, like the beginnings of a hot spring.

With the laugh comes water, pooling at the corners of her eyes. Byul’s not even sure how long it’s been building up there. It feels like her cry with Wheein in the studio only brushed the surface.

“It’ll take time,” her therapist promises. “But I think, eventually, if you keep coming to see me, you can learn to love that part of yourself again?”

“Again?”

She smiles. “We aren’t born hating ourselves, now, are we?”

Through her teary eyes, the glass window looks more like a pond. And then it begins to rain outside. Fat, heavy drops. Something inside of her, a string too tightly wound, breaks. She sinks into the cushion of her chair, suddenly exhausted.

Her therapist hands her a tissue. “Go get a massage. I think it’ll help.”

When she leaves the office, something seems a little greener.

**___________________________________**

The woman who could be **Eric** ’s agent laughs when she walks into his office. Her shoulder-length hair sways back and forth as she does so. As usual, she’s got an impeccable notebook in front of her.

“You’ve created quite a mess since the last time we spoke, haven’t you, Mr. Nam?” she asks, even though they both already know the answer to that.

Eric can’t help but look at the ground as she lists off his accomplishments. “A feud with your company. A secret relationship. A possible _elopement._ ”

“Now that one wasn't’ true,” he interjects, but it’s futile. She seems far too amused by the whole situation.

She waves her hand. “That doesn’t matter. Stories, whether true or not, create _image._ It’s that _image_ that defines your career as an idol. However, you were looking to change your image, were you not?”

Eric nods. “I was. What have I given you to work with?”

“Oh so you are hiring me then?” she asks. “I thought you’d just come here to amuse me.” He does not laugh at her joke. She coughs and then opens the notebook containing his name to an already-outlined page. “Well, you’ve single-handedly decimated the Nation’s Boyfriend angle.”

He can’t help but laugh at that. “True.”

“This leaves us with this: You’re American. You’re in a public relationship that started on a television show. You write your own music. You have a bit of an ability to drop bombs and run away from them. And you’re still terribly, utterly charming. Too much so for me to make you a bad boy.”

“Can’t I just be me?” Eric asks. “That should be enough.”

She frowns. “Haven’t we already had this discussion? Look, Mr. Nam, these past few months you’ve “been yourself” have been a little bit chaotic, have they not? Image doesn’t mean you can’t be yourself. It just means the public isn’t being fed contradictory versions of yourself. Right now you’re not the Nation’s Boyfriend, but you’re not the Nation’s Ex-Boyfriend either. You’re simultaneously the guy with the best manners in the country and also the guy with the secret girlfriend who’s feuding with his company. We need to make these things one.”

Her outline on him is written in purples and browns. Unconventional colors of pen, to be sure. She has lines connecting him to Ailee, to Gallant, to Henry and to Solar. A line runs from him through Eddie to Jessica.

“The real question is, who do you want to be?”

Eric thinks about it. “I don’t know,” he says. “I guess, first and foremost, I’ve always been more of an older brother than anything else.”

She frowns, and scribbles something into her notes. Eric watches her draw a line from this statement to Red Velvet and Somi, to Eddie and Brian. Finally she taps her pen against her chin. “I’ll have to think a little more about this,” she says. “But I think you might be onto something here. You’re smarter than we tend to give you credit for.”

Eric blushes at the compliment. “I try.”

“We’ll have to use that as an angle. Older brother… hmm… What would you think about a mentoring program? Of course, everything would have to be run through your company but-”

“I’m kind of good on TV shows for a while. I’m about to have a comeback, so…”

“Oh? Hmm, I see.” She scribbles something else out. “What about the album art? Have you done that yet? There could be an angle there…”

A sudden wave of exhaustion rushes over Eric. He knew what he was getting into, going to her, but he can only take so much of this at once. What he’d said before was true; he really just would prefer being himself, not whatever manufactured creation she’s trying to project but- He sighs. This is how this works. It’ll help. It’ll- It’ll help.

“Can I make another appointment to follow up on this?” he asks. “I just remembered I have somewhere where I need to be.”

She doesn’t really seem to buy his excuse but nods, circles dates in her planner that are open, and goes back to outlining. Eric chooses a Tuesday a few weeks away. Should be enough time for him to figure out who exactly he wants to be this time around.

As he leaves, he hears her get a call. “The ex boyfriend?” she asks, and shoos him out the door. “He’s taken care of, don’t worry. That poor girl has been sitting in the hospital for months. It felt only right.”

She says goodbye with a finger over her purple lips signaling him to be quiet. It’s fitting, in a way.

**___________________________________**

Early mornings are when **Wheein** goes on walks. She used to be more wary about the city in the morning, but time has made it home, and she knows her way around. She’ll go to the corner, past the light up neon blue signs advertising just-closed bars and the fish market. There’s always an older lady selling plastic bracelets there. Sometimes Wheein buys one.

She hands them out like souvenirs. A quick present to someone who might need a quick gift. One of the new trainees after a particularly hard dance rehearsal. Esna, the day she tells her she might be leaving them. Solar, less often than most. More often nowadays.

Today there’s a purple one right in the middle of the bunch. Indigo plastic strands twirled together with a yellow charm shaped like a fish at the end. It’s not even particularly pretty - she gave the prettiest one she’d ever found away months ago. There’s just something about it, in the fog of the morning, as the sun begins to creep through the spaces in between buildings, that draws her hand out of her pocket. Her fingertips uncurl with the caution of a child stepping into a pool for the first time. Her eyes cannot look away.

“See something you like?” the woman manning the stand today asks.

It’s not the usual woman. Her daughter possibly, Wheein thinks. She had said something the other week about her daughter taking care of it while she’s on vacation. Today, the woman who’s selling the bracelets has on a green fleece coat. Her hair is braided into a plait. Wheein wonders if she’s seen her somewhere before.

“I-” Wheein starts, but can’t find her voice, still staring at the intertwined threads. She coughs. “How much for that one?”

She pays quickly, quietly, with cash she’d only barely remembered to bring along. When she leaves, she slips the bracelet into the pocket of her hoodie and pulls her hat down closer around her face. She’d like to just be a girl from Jeonju this morning, not anyone more than that.

Anything more than that might complicate things today.

Before she can even reach her final destination, she finds Byul in the hallway, leaning against the door of her own apartment. She’s sitting on the ground, phone propped up on her knees, some sort of music playing too-loud from her earbuds.

“What are you doing?” Wheein asks.

Byul, startled, looks up. Her eyes are mostly-hidden behind her bangs. They haven’t quite changed their hair for the comeback yet. Wheein supposes she’s waiting to cut them until the music video shoot. She’d done the same thing half a year ago. It feels like half a world ago.

Byul sighs. “I got locked out. I was talking with Yongsun-unnie. Something about the new lyrics. We were- it wasn’t fun and she left my apartment and I followed her out into the hallway and then, yeah.”

Wheein frowns. “Did you spend the night out here?”

She looks her over. Her sweater seems crumpled, but not enough for it to be incriminating. She’s also still in her black jeans, the ones that make her legs looks so incredibly thin. The kind of thin that makes Hyejin whisper a little worryingly.

“No, no.” Byul shakes her head. “It was only…” she checks her watch, “an hour or so ago. 

Wheein moves to unlock her own door and motions for Byul to follow her. “Come with me then, weary traveler,” she teases. “Let me cook you breakfast.”

When she gets inside, she places the new bracelet on the counter and goes to open her fridge. She turns around to ask what she wants and instead finds Byul hovering over the braided circlet, staring at the plastic thing with the same sort of draw Wheein had felt earlier.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Just another bracelet,” Wheein responds. She shrugs, trying to shake off the way the morning cold is making her shiver. Or maybe it’s something else. “Do you want it?”

It makes its way to its final destination after all, as Byul reaches over to touch it and rolls it over her hand onto her wrist. The fish flops around a little as she does so, and Wheein feels the need to come over and fix the poor thing once it’s safely on her small wrist. She’d wondered if it would be too much with all of Byul’s rings, but it fits right in. A little quaint, maybe, but fitting.

She looks up to find Byul’s gaze hot on her face. She remembers the alley and immediately steps away, going back to the fridge. Wheein doesn’t say much as she pulls out the ingredients for kimchi fried rice. The stove takes a few tries to light. She wonders if they might have a gas problem.

It’s almost comically awkward, trying not to look at her. She turns the dial and _click_ \- nothing - and _click_ \- still nothing - and _click_ -

“Maybe I should try-”

Flame sparks on the stove top. Wheein immediately pulls her eyes away. The contact burns more than she supposes the flame could ever. Even once it lights, she keeps her hand on the dial. Just in case.

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

Byul is examining the way the bracelet looks on her slim wrist, sliding the plastic fish between two of her fingers. Wheein sees her silhouette out of the corner of her eye. She doesn’t turn to look for fear that she’d catch her.

Wheein pours the oil into the pan. “Fire away,” she says, and then laughs a little at her own terrible joke. Byul laughs a little too. Probably louder than necessary.

She slides the oil around in the pan while she waits for the question. It covers the stainless steel surface easily, almost effortlessly. Cooking has never been especially easy for her, but she’s okay enough at it. Okay enough to feed herself and cook her friend breakfast.

“Why did you kiss me?”

Immediately, Wheein turns the stove back off. More instinct than anything else. A reflex to rid herself of one possible danger before diving into another. Her head feels hot. She refuses to turn around, instead her gaze focuses steadily on the steady stream of rain falling outside.

“I know you were drunk,” Byul continues. “I know that’s the explanation I gave for you in the moment, which probably wasn’t fair, but you didn’t argue and I was okay thinking that, having that… I just don’t think I can keep going without knowing _why_.”

Wheein swallows. Her throat could be a desert with how cracked it seems right now. She doesn’t think she could sing even if someone took a knife from the drawer to the left of her stove and pointed it at her chest. She’s glad she put the pan down because her hands are shaking just ever so slightly.

Byul taps a few of her fingers on her counter in an old, almost memorized rhythm. Bum bum bada. Bum bum bada. Bum bum bada bum.

“I guess I was scared you wouldn’t need me anymore.” Wheein’s not looking at her, but out the window, at the rain dripping off the roof. “It was a little bit of that I guess.”

“We all need each other,” Byul reminds her. “No matter how bad things get between the four of us, we’re always going to need each other.”

Wheein raises an eyebrow. “What’s with the sudden optimism?” The joke falls flat. “I didn’t mean it like that. Not the way you need Hyejin or I need Yongsunnie. Just… differently.”

“So need was all it was then? You kissed me because you wanted to feel needed?”

This conversation is awfully reminiscent of the time Wheein tried to help someone push their car out of a ditch. She’d been feeling pretty bad, right after her grandmother’s death, and weak to the bone. Nothing was budging. Just skin on metal and a frustrating feeling like she was losing. For some reason, though, she’d still kept pushing.

Maybe if she pushes Byulyi hard enough she’ll understand.

“That’s not why I kissed you.” Wheein turns around with a sudden fierceness. Her chest feels hot. “I’m just saying that’s what I was scared of. I don’t want things to just go back to the way they were before, with you and Yongsunnie keeping secrets. I want to be in your life, Byulyi, I want-”

“ _Why did you kiss me?”_ Her hands are on her shoulders now, rings digging into her collarbone. Her grip is tight but not painful. Just… persistant.

“It’s just… We were sitting there, talking about kisses. Last kisses. And I thought about how stupid it was that we’re all just _not living_ when we could be. Yongun’s the only one who’s doing what she wants. And it’s not like we have to wait for her to be done with Yoondo for our turn. We should just… we should do what we want, Byulyi.”

“Then why-”

“I kissed you because I wanted to. And obviously you didn’t want to kiss me. And I’ve accepted that. I’m not expecting anything of you just…”

She feels her hands move first. Fingertips press and then mouth opens and then her lips are touching hers. Not really brushing so much as moving with something that tastes like need. Wheein can’t remember where she is; it feels like she’s a million places at once. The studio. The hospital. The alleyway. And here, in her apartment, with the rain falling outside, breathing Byul in.

Wheein finds her feet quickly enough to kiss her back. She sighs into it, and they rock slightly before breaking away. She keeps her forehead pressed to hers, even as she takes a much-needed breath in, scared that if she lets go it’ll all slip away.

“You haven’t told Yongsunnie yet, have you?” Wheein asks, and then groans. “Shit, that was a mood-killer, wasn’t it?”

Byul laughs, surprisingly smiling. Her eyes are shining. “Just a little bit,” she says. “But no. I haven’t.”

Wheein’s chest tightens. “I don’t want to complicate things. I want to make sure, when you’re ready… It should be for you, not for me or anything like that.”

“This week,” Byul promises. “I’ll do it this week. I’m just-”

“It’s okay to be scared.”

“You were right, though. She shouldn’t be the only one who gets to live the way she wants.”

Wheein bites her lip. “Is that what this is? Living the way we want?”

Byul nods. “I think so.” She’s still smiling, ferociously so. Wheein has to fight the overwhelming urge to kiss her again. The urge that’s running through her veins and fingertips and making the hairs at the back of her neck stand up. 

Wheein squeezes her arm. “Talk to her,” she says again. “And then we can figure out what else this is, okay?”

“Okay.”

**___________________________________**

**Solar** opens her day by walking across a white stage and sitting down in a chair next to three other female idols of similar reputation. She smiles and waves and makes sure to smooth her white pencil skirt down before she sits. Her ponytail almost gets caught in the back of the chair.

The cameras have only barely started rolling when the interviewer - a man whose name she thinks she knows but isn’t quite sure - asks her how her relationship started. His voice is big and booming. She wonders if maybe he was an actor once.

Solar tries not to feel caught off guard by the interviewer’s question. It’s standard, she expected it. She rehearsed her answer, even, two hours ago, in the car with Byul - the first non album-related conversation they’ve had in weeks. Practiced it over and over again until the words were imprinted to her mind. Really, though, they should know by now that that’s pretty much useless when it comes to this one specific topic.

“We like food,” she offers, and shrugs, and leaves it at that.

The other girls around her, whose faces she’s beginning to place now, nod and smile and chatter appreciatively. There’s a special cry of envy when she admits that her agency has always allowed her to date. The whole thing seems fairly wrapped up in a cute little bow after a few minutes, the conversation having moved onto risque choreography and fanservice.

And then one of the girls - the one who she still can’t quite place - brings up the Nation’s Boyfriend thing. There’s an edge to it. A bite. Some level of animosity behind the smile as she asks “How does it feel to have taken the Nation’s Boyfriend off the market?”

In Solar’s very humble opinion, she’s a little too young to be acting this bold on television. She swallows her frustration and laughs to cover up her anger. One of her hands figets with her blouse so she isn’t caught making a fist. “I don’t like to think I _took_ anything,” she says. “Can you take something by accidentally falling in love with it?”

The interviewer leans in. “So you fell in love accidentally?” he asks. “Don’t worry, you can tell us. That show you were on is ending soon anyways. Did you not originally want to date Eric Nam? Is there some terrible side of him we should know about?”

Solar clenches her teeth. “No, no,” she assures him, and then the camera. “The thing is, I was reluctant exactly because of the love his fans have for him. I didn’t want to feel like I was getting in the way of that?”

“But you changed your mind at some point?” the younger idol questions, tilting her head to the side in a way that’s anything but innocent. “You decided your relationship with him was more important?”

“Never,” Solar declares, trying not to raise her voice. “I think, for both of us, our fans come first and foremost.”

“Then why even go public at all? Why not just keep your relationship a secret and not break so many hearts? It’s not even like Dispatch caught you. You two came forward by yourselves. Forgive me for not understanding, I haven’t been in the industry that long, you see…”

Really, it’s the oldest of the other two girls, the one from Orange Caramel, she thinks, that saves her. She leans forward, having been fairly quiet thus far for most of the interview, and very calmly says “I think their relationship is their business. Many idols date without telling their fans. Solar-ssi shared her relationship with her fans. I think that’s very brave. You’ll understand more as you get older.”

Solar mouths a _thank you_ at her, but she isn’t quite sure if she sees it. The conversation is once again steered away from her love life. She can’t help but wonder if she was that impertinent when she first debuted. She can’t have been, right? RBW never really fostered that kind of attitude. Maybe it’s different in the bigger companies.

As she’s leaving, though, the younger idol looks her up and down, from her small black heels to the ponytail on her head, and makes a face. Solar spends a moment staring at her reflection in the glass of the studio’s building after that, not quite able to see what it was that she was seeing.

“You did the right thing,” she tells herself. “The right thing. For everyone.”

Still, she can’t help but feel a little stench of bitterness towards Byul. This, all of this, has been hard. Incredibly so. And she wouldn’t mind going through all of it for her. She really wouldn’t. It’s just it’s hard to fight through something without a cause. 

When the car pulls up, Byul’s inside of it. The sight of her makes Solar bite her lip in frustration. She doesn’t want to say anything she’ll regret, but she’s full of all the anger she couldn’t express inside.

“How was it?” Byul asks. “Did you say what I told you to say?”

“Sure.” Solar’s voice stiffly makes its way out of her mouth. “And then it got out of control.”

Byul leans over a little bit. Solar refuses to look at her. “What do you mean _out of control_?”

“I got accused of _taking him_ or something. And then of being selfish. I don’t know. I don’t know. How am I supposed to defend myself for that? I know I wasn’t being selfish, but I don’t even know _why_ I wasn’t because you won’t tell me and I’m sick of going through this. It hurts. And then it hurts even more because you won’t tell me _why_ I’m even doing this.”

“How long has this been going on?” Byul asks. She feels distant. Across a lake or something. Or through a windowpane.

“On and off for months. It flares up and dies down again and then comes back just as I think we’re past it.” Solar runs her hands through her hair, surely messing up the ponytail. It’s okay, though. She doesn’t need to look put-together anymore today. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I know you’re probably sick and tired of me asking. I just… If I’m going to keep doing this. I need to know.”

“No,” Byul nods. “You’re right. I should… I’ll tell you, just. When we get home, okay?” She eyes their manager with a kind of nervousness Solar can’t read. “We should be sitting on solid ground for this.”

Solar nods. In the driver’s seat, their manager rolls a window down. They drive through the parking garage mostly in silence. The light in the car flashes and changes as they move between columns, weaving in and out of the sunlight.

When the reach the outside, Byul’s newly blonde hair begins to glow in the sunlight. Solar considers the colors she can dye her own for their comeback. A car cuts them off and they screech to a stop. Byul and Solar fly forward, catching themselves on the backs of the seats in front of them.

Solar looks over next to her, at her member with the messed up glasses. She’s looking at the car floor but slowly, her head turns. Byul corrects her glasses with ring-covered fingers. For the first time in a while, her eyes meet Solar’s. For some unknowable reason, neither of them can help laughing.

**___________________________________**

**Byul** never planned for it to happen at her kitchen table. It’s just, when they get back to their apartment complex, her throat feels so dry and she’s so thirsty from the anticipation of it all that she goes to get a glass of water. Solar follows her inside and sits down on one of the rarely-used grey dining chairs. Byul sits down next to her, takes a sip of water, and tries not to throw up.

“You said you’d explain,” Solar prompts, but her voice is quiet too. Byul feels her nails try to dig into the glass. She’s scared it might shatter. She makes her face a rubber mask just so the tears won’t flow preemptively. 

“It’s hard,” Byul admits. “It’s hard to explain. Even just sitting here with you bringing it up is hard.”

“It’s hard losing my best friend.” Solar’s words are soft but harsh. _Touche_ , Byul thinks.

“I didn’t know what you wanted, for the longest time,” she tries - a confession of sorts. It feels a little bit like being blinded, like she’s in some interrogation room, trying to tell the truth under hot, bright lights. “And I didn’t know if you’d still be here at the end of it.”

“What do you mean?” Solar asks, and Byul wishes she wouldn’t. She wishes she could tell her through every indirect possible. Through ideal types and articles and halfway-covered rants about how _not everything has to be the way tradition says it is, Yongsunnie._ She wishes that they could work this out without her having to even utter a single word along the lines of the truth.

But Wheein was right. The truth has become a necessity. It’s the one thing that might bring them back together. And, if it doesn’t, then they’re already as torn apart as they can get. 

Byul takes a deep breath. Her hands are shaking underneath the table. She doesn’t think she’s been this scared since the night Solar left. “It’s not your fault,” she manages. “I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault, really. Or if it is then it’s both of ours. Just… don’t blame yourself. Don’t do that thing you do. If you take this on yourself I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it-”

Solar takes her hands in hers. “What’s wrong?” she asks, as if it can be summed up in something so simple.

Byul looks down at their hands, where she once so delicately drew rings on in pen. Before there was a real ring. That seems so long ago now. She can’t even quite remember what they looked like. 

“Nothing’s _wrong_ ,” she assures her. “Something might’ve been, but I’ve been told I shouldn’t think of it that way. I- It’s just. I might’ve been a little bit in love with you.”

It’s not monsoon season, but the room feels hot and foggy in the same way after her confession. There’s a pressure on her chest, getting heavier with each second of Solar’s silence. She’s struck with a sudden fear that this entire conversation was a terrible idea. Guilt drips down her throat like poison, threatening to suffocate her.

And then, Solar speaks.

She hasn’t moved her hands away, and her fingers lightly dance over the back of Byul’s hand in an imitation of playing piano. “You loved me?” she asks, like she doesn’t quite understand.

“This was a bad idea.”

Byul moves to get up, but Solar keeps her there, hand firm. “No, no. I just meant… Past tense? As in, not anymore?”

Inhale. Exhale. Byul swallows her fear. “I don’t think so. I think… I think it got tangled up in us and our careers and what it means to be idols. I got so weird because I wasn’t quite sure how to like, untangle us from that.”

“And Yoondo?”

Byul nods. “We’re okay. He’s a good guy. I like him. He helped me out when another person wouldn’t have. I think I’ll always be grateful for that.”

Solar’s eyes widen in realization. “Oh…” she starts, voice quiet. “ _That._ That- You’re saying she… _Oh my god, Byulyi._ ”

Solar’s hands are gripping hers tight. Knuckles white-hot. Her jaw is trembling with a kind of rage Byul barely ever sees color her face. 

“It’s okay,” Byul assures her, even though it, most decidedly, was _not_ okay for a little bit there.

“It’s not okay. It’s _not._ I’ll- I’ll talk to her. I’ll expose her. I’ll-”

“You already took care of it,” Byul reminds her. She bites her lip. “You don’t hate me do you?”

“Hate you?” Solar asks. “I could _never_ hate you, Byulyi. I’m just- I thought you had a _baby._ ” She pulls her in tight for a hug, and Byul can’t help but notice that her heart doesn’t seem to flush in quite the same way as it used to. She’s just glad to be in the arms of her friend, a little less alone in the world.

“Don’t feel bad about it,” Solar whispers, when they pull away. “I can’t even imagine… I’ll talk to the company, if you want. Say whatever it is you want me to say. I’m your leader, Byulyi, and your friend. Let me help you. I need to not feel like I’ve been hurting you every time I touch you.” She notices their still-touching arms and quickly jumps away.

It takes everything in Byul to remain calm in that moment. To not stress that she’s just wrecked everything in a completely new way. “You can touch me,” she assures her. “Just… No more of… whatever it is we were doing. You don’t have to do anything except be here. Be here and never run away from us like that. You scared us so badly.”

Solar nods, eyes teary, and pulls her in for another hug. “I won’t,” she promises. “Just don’t push me away next time. I don’t know if I could handle you doing that again.”

Something hot and wet drips down her own face. She’s cried so many tears recently - too many, probably - but these tears feel different. For the first time in a long time, it feels like these might be the last tears. 

Solar frowns and moves to wipe Byul’s tears away with the corner of her sleeve. “Your face…” she starts, and then loses her train of thought. “Your makeup…”

Byul laughs a little. “I’ll live,” she quips. “I’ve already put on all the necessary faces for today.”

She pulls her in for another hug. She’s warm. Like summer sunshine. The rain continues.

**___________________________________**

**Eric** has yet to have his first solo concert in Korea. There were plans, once upon a time. Plans that changed and got cancelled and shifted around. Plans that turned from “this day” to “maybe someday.” Plans which the thought of still puts a bitter taste in his mouth.

What he’s making do with for now, as he feels absolutely no remorse about the mess his company is still dealing with about his new relationship, are shared concerts. Other slightly category-defying company-ignored solo artists. Mostly guys. Mostly guys who can play guitar. It’s a special way to tell all of them that they haven’t quite “made it” yet and maybe should’ve all just tried to form a boy group together years ago.

The mass of female fans in the audience, however, could not be happier about the situation. Eric, too, has found something to be happy about, since he is finally, _finally_ , allowed to perform one of his songs with the knowledge that they have already been recorded onto an album.

He’s going to have a _comeback._

The knowledge of that tastes like pineapple upside-down cake. Sweet and a little tangy. Like summer. Like hope. His entire body is buzzing with adrenaline before he even gets onstage to perform his set. Not from stage fright or his anxiety flaring up or anything like that, but just what Eddie might classify as good vibrations.

When he steps out from behind the curtain to open with “Can’t Help Myself,” the crowd goes wild. He sees signs with his name on them - some more supporting of his relationship to Solar than others. Bright lights blinking on and off. Even a radish one, in the far corner of the audience. They’re happy, he thinks. And excited. He’s excited too.

Eric goes through his regulars. “Can’t Help Myself” into “Heaven’s Door” into “Ooh Ooh” and then “You Who” (although it’s not quite as fun without Somi). It’s only when he finishes those that he feels his new song calling to him. It rings across the stage, to the band behind him. He flashes them a grin and a nod and grabs the microphone to prepare himself for it.

“I have a new song for you all tonight,” Eric says. A wall of cheers answers him.

He thinks of Solar, of the things she’s gone through in his name, and lets himself, finally, get pushed over the edge. “This song is about _my girlfriend_ ,” he tells the crowd, putting the last part in English as he’s prone to do when he’s hiding something he wants to be found. “And about telling someone you love them for the first time. It’s called _Rooftops at Midnight_.”

The first strum of the guitar behind him, and he’s already thinking of sitting in her apartment, watching her play, twisting that ring around in his hand and wondering if it’s too much to ask to just stay in that moment. He can’t even hear the crowd when he gets like this, can barely gague their reaction to his news. All he feels is the microphone in his hands and the stage lights on his face. All he remembers is her smile.

The bass is a comforting sound. It guides him through the first verse, a quiet companion, made of metal and warm strings. He lets the sound carry him, take him away from the stage, and he brings the audience with him. It’s not the first song to feel this way, but it’s one of the best times he’s floated away with it like this. 

By the time he’s gotten into the first chorus, people are nodding along. No one is clapping or waving lights or anything like that - because they’re all still a little bit mad at him for the _girlfriend_ comment, but they’re feeling it. He knows they have to be feeling it. He’s feeling it. It’s all over him, in bursts of energy, eighths and sixteenths and shifts in time signature. 

No one knows the words yet. They will soon, though. And that’s not just hubris speaking - he’s confident in his prose, the way it wraps around his tongue like a kiss goodnight. The chorus is catchy too, and he’s, ultimately, proud of it. There’s an English version too, that they’ll release in a few months - a step in a much longer procession towards the future. There’s no regret in his mind about tying Solar to it.

A girl in the front row, who’d looked less than pleased at the start of the song, is swaying by the time the second chorus finishes. She blushes when he catches her. The reaction motivates him as he pushes forward, getting more and more into it, really feeling the blue/purple scent of moonlight that permeates the melody. Eric’s not quite winning them over yet, but, just like an American future, the path is taken step by step.

He’d called the bridge of this song by a different name when he was first writing it. It had seemed like a different song at the time. Now, though, it works together. The name of it still rings in his head, though. _Vindication_ , it screams. Eric smiles in response.

He’s sweating under the lights of the stage, as he belts out the final chorus. “And now I’m stumbling,” he sings. And then “City skyline underneath.” Eric can’t remember when the crowd started singing the fairly simple chorus back to him, but he’s suddenly grateful for that suggestion to save the complexity for the verses. They know it. And they love it.

Sometimes winning isn’t a glass trophy on national television. Or even a wish in a pool. Sometimes it’s as simple as a song.

**___________________________________**

Two weeks later **Byul** comes to Solar’s apartment for a group meeting only to find that Wheein and Hwasa are nowhere to be seen. Instead, it’s just Solar, leaning back on her purple armchair, in 50’s-looking high waisted jeans with her hair in a perfectly-crafted ponytail. Her nails are red. 

She smiles slightly nervously when she sees her. The get up is new for Solar’s street style but Byul thinks maybe she’s trying out something new. Or maybe the pressure of the album has become too much for her and she’s finally just snapped. There was some pretty hard choreography the other day…

Solar takes a deep breath before speaking. “I have a surprise for you,” she says, and then clicks her tongue on the back of her mouth anxiously. 

Byul surveys the room, seeing nothing quite as out of place as the red pumps her friend is wearing. Solar gives a shaky smile. “It’s not here,though,” she clarifies. “It’s somewhere else. Somewhere secret I’m- Oh it’ll be better if I just show you.”

She grabs her hand and pulls her out the door, only barely stopping to turn her key in the lock. There’s a car already waiting for them, and the ride to this mysterious location is quiet like the kind of quiet their last long car ride together was - on the way home from that show. Byul is struck with the sudden horrifying idea that maybe Solar’s changed her mind about being okay with everything.

Solar turns to her with a frown. “It’s a good surprise, I promise.” Her voice seems shaky too, though.

The car stops in the countryside. The sun outside is bright and there are a few other cars on the road. Byul sees someone carrying a large camera inside. _Ah,_ she thinks. _So we’re filming something._ She hopes it’s not some misguided attempt at a public confession.

A cream-colored house sits in the middle of a rice field, surrounded by two hedges of flowers. Almost a maze but not quite. The afternoon sun hits the scene almost picturesquely. Behind the house, almost out of sight from the front view, is a warehouse. 

“I wanted it to be for you,” Solar tells her, as they walk together along the rows of flower bushes. “I know we can’t technically celebrate you, but I wanted to do something, I guess. I’ve been talking with a director all week.”

When they reach the end of the garden, Solar opens the door to the house where, inside, a male model sits, dressed in a suit and reading a newspaper. Byul moves to the edge of the room, behind the camera, and watches as Solar sits down. Suddenly, her more vintage attire makes sense. 

They do a few takes of the couple eating a very pastel-colored breakfast, and then, after the fourth _cut_ , Solar gets up and takes her around to the warehouse where they find a storyboard. Carefully crafted scenes are spread out in front of her, including her dream about the tree, which she’d only told Wheein about one time. Solar’s care is obvious on every paper, as the scenes are littered with little notes in her handwriting.

“It’s for you,” she says again. “And also for everyone else who feels the way you do. I just want all of you to feel a little more loved.”

“Wow,” Byul breathes, when she finds her voice again. 

She almost jumps when Solar places a hand on her shoulder. “It’s your turn for the breakfast scene now.” She points to a rack of clothing. From the table, the male model smiles.

Dress pants, and a red and white pinstriped blouse. A grey tie and long white socks. The hair and makeup artist fashions her hair into a loose braid. She murmurs something about being careful with the artwork on her face.

The first thing Byul notices when she steps into the kitchen set - after greeting the model - is that they’re dressed almost exactly the same. They look similar too, only in the sense that he’s got the same smile she does. Her tie is a little more satin, she supposes. And he has larger shoes. And a handkerchief. But, other than that, it’s a concept similar to Decalcomanie - looking in a mirror and finding someone other than yourself stare back.

The director sits them down across a table. He’s reading a newspaper and then she is, while he sips from a teacup. THe phone rings and she answer but his voice is the one that speaks. It’s only when she gets it back that the person on the other end hangs up in disgust.

It’s not a perfect metaphor, Byul supposes, but as she dances with him using moves more traditionally suited for boy groups, she feels a sense of validation in her fight. Everything is positioned just so, and then she’ll ruin it all by trying to take a different role. Or they’ll switch - and the third party in the room always seems a little horrified.

The rap is a very special instance of this, as she starts out with the soft gravelly tones of other girl group rappers - _boy, boy, boy, don’t you think I’m yours?_ \- and gradually progresses into a more intense spitfire rap - _I’m more than the part you’ve assigned me to play_. By the end of the shooting, her throat is on fire, but she feels the intensity of it all burning in her chest.

When her part is done, she sits down on the couch next to Solar with a sigh and tries not to crease the white tulle dress they’ve put her member in.

Hwasa’s filming in a room of mirrors a few feet away, dancing and then playing and then sitting in the dark. An electronic voice spews out words from “western” to things less complimentary. It’s nothing near the level of things she’s seen on forums, though.

“Do you like the concept?” Solar asks. She doesn’t seem to notice that the flower crown on her head is beginning to tilt to the side. Her face reads like a map of good intentions.

“You didn’t have to,” Byul says. “We could’ve done any other concept - Wonderland or… James Bond or… anything.”

Solar laughs. “We’ll have later for everything,” she promises. “Right now we have _you_ , and besides, it fits the song.”

Byul nods. It really does. The careful, tinkling piano and the anxious sounding guitar mix well with the lyrics Solar has written. They’re neither angry nor quite satisfied. Just truthful. Stories of a genie who gives more than you’d asked for. She’s not calling it “Genie,” though - their girl group predecessors already did that. Solar’s affectionately titled it “Faces” instead. It fits. It all just fits.

To her left, Wheein disappears behind a corner in a move that’s almost reminiscent of a James Bond concert. She shoots Byul a wink and the director immediately sighs dramatically and orders the cameras to restart.

Solar gives the two of them a look. Byul smiles innocently. “It’s good.” she tells her. “I’m good. I’m- I’m actually having fun.”

Solar play-glares a little bit. “This song means a lot to me,” she warns. “If you two mess up the music video with your shenanigans…”

Byul laughs. It sounds a little bit like the chorus.

**___________________________________**

Immortal Songs performances might just replace charting as **Wheein** ’s favorite part of a comeback. They always come around at just the right time. The right distraction when she needs one. Like now, when her almost not-quite relationship is confusion and messy and she just needs to choreograph something.

They get a folk song again. Adapted, of course, by the artist they’re honoring. It’s fast-paced, like a heartbeat, and the words sing about storm and rain and fruit. It’s fitting almost, since it is _still_ raining. Wheein’s heard whispers that they might see the sun this week, though.

Her hair is reddish again for the comeback, and it whooshes around as she does the circle-clapping movement that defines their dance rendition of this song. She’s careful with the movement, trying to make everything as precise as possible.

The enigma that is her almost not-quite relationship sits in the corner by the speakers and claps when she’s finished. Wheein blows her bangs out of her face and does a little bow for Byul. “Are we dating now?” she asks, as if a good piece of choreography can change that.

Wheein wishes it would.

It’s late, as it usually is when they’re in the dance studio together. As it was when they waltzed together and the subject of kissing was first brought up. Ooh yeah. Bad train of thought right now.

She leaves Byul to think about it and dives right back into the choreography, unable to let her brain sit still for one second lest she drive herself into madness trying to read her mind. _Step, clap clap. Spin, clap clap. High, clap clap. Low, clap clap. Step, clap-_

“We haven’t been on a date yet.”

Wheein trips.

Byul is smirking, almost horribly so. Wheein’s tempted to throw her dance shoe at her. “We haven’t been on a date yet so no, I don’t think that means we’re dating.”

Wheein lays on the ground, refusing to move from her place on the floor where she’d tripped. “Okay, she says. Your turn to do the choreography now. We can fix the dating thing once you get it right.”

Byul laughs. “You’re the one who brought it up.”

“It’s called _motivation_ , Byulyi. Now you have another reason to learn this dance with me.”

They do not fix the dating thing as soon as she gets it right, because one of the foot combinations is actually a little harder than Wheein had originally thought it would be, and neither of them really get the hang of it until the day before the show. By that point they’re both too exhausted to move let alone have a mature adult conversation about like, dates and stuff.

And then the car is for sleeping and the studio is for being filmed and suddenly they’re on stage singing about fruit and storms in blue jumpsuits with crossed backs and flared pants. There is no time for dating in any of that. Wheein wonders if maybe that’s really what’ll kill them. Not lack of interest or emotion but just lack of time. There was time when they weren’t ready - tons and tons of it - but now that they are they’re just mid-comeback.

Honestly, she kind of understands why it took a few months after the end of filming We Got Married for Solar and Eric to get together.

It’s no King of Kings special but their competition is fierce. No other girl groups, though - they still hold that crown very tightly. People she’s looked up to for years, though, are up against them. They’ve been fangirling quietly backstage since they started filming. Wheein definitely does not think they’ll win.

That’s never the reason they go on this show, though.

It’s really for the fun of it. And it is fun, in a way other live performances just aren’t. It’s special. One-time one-of-a-kind fun (unless they get the rights to perform it later). The live audience is incredible, too. Reactive and good-humored. They gasp at the right high note and are on the edge of their seats when Byul starts rapping. 

It’s the foot combination - the one that almost killed them - that really gets the audience going. Hyejin and Solar are belting, doing riffs and runs and all sorts of glorious acrobatic stuff with their voices that Wheein doesn’t quite envy because she knows she’ll get the chance to do the same thing in a minute. Byul and Wheein dance with all the energy of their members’ voices. It’s exhilarating.

The applause feels almost overwhelming. It makes her feel dizzy, down to her bones. Like that time her and Hyejin went clubbing when they were trainees and she got slightly overwhelmed by just how _much_ of everything there was. Their movements are fast-paced, probably the hardest choreography they’ve done so far, and she when her eyes meet Byul’s she can’t help but smile.

They’re not even done with the performance yet and people are already standing. _I love this_ , Wheein thinks. _I love her._

It’s not a new thought, it’s something that’s been creeping up for about a month now, as they’ve danced together and clung together and tried to keep each other from falling apart, from realising how much a family the four of them have become in the past four years. It’s the first time she’s really voiced it, though, not out loud, but in her mind. _I love her,_ she thinks again, and, despite the danger of that statement, she’s still high on the applause. She’s still fearless. _I love her._

As they stand and wait for the verdict of their score, Wheein’s mind is elsewhere. She can barely remember to bow to the older gentleman who’d performed before them, let alone whether they’re red or blue. The lights flicker and flash like the very storm they’d been singing about before finally, decisively, flickering out. They do not win - she hadn’t thought they would - but, in the dark, she hugs her members anyways. When she reaches Byul she leans over and whispers in her ear.

“Let’s go on a date,” she says.

Byul spins her around. “Okay.”

**___________________________________**

“ _Faces_ is not what we have come to expect from Mamamoo’s pre-releases,” **Solar** reads out loud, curled up on the couch, head resting on her boyfriend’s chest. Wheein and Byul are resting in a similar position in the armchair, basking in the sunlight streaming from the window. Hwasa lays on the floor, knees bent, phone up in the air, Jjing-jjing resting on her chest.

“It lacks both the peppiness and comedy of _1cm_ and _New York_ , coming in with a slightly jazzy feel that’s more reminiscent of their work in _Don’t Be Happy._ Missing, too, are their famous powerful vocals, as they hold their voices mostly back until the bridge-”

“Blah blah blah,” Wheein interjects. She’s absentmindedly braiding a few strands of her own hair. “Skip to the good parts. We already know it’s different.”

Solar frowns. “It’s important for us to read _all_ of the critiques, you know. How else are we supposed to grow as performers?”

Eric laughs and she feels the low rumble of it underneath her. She’s tempted to ruffle his hair but doesn’t, because that would involve losing her barely-maintained composure as team leader. Solar obliges Wheein’s request anyways.

“It is the first song of theirs to be fully written and composed by leader Solar, which could explain the change in tone. While many have suspected that the song would be about current boyfriend Eric Nam upon hearing this news-”

Hwasa sits up, exasperated. “They’re really still talking about this?” she asks. “It’s been _months_.”

Solar glares at her. “ _It’s important to_ -”

“Yes, we know, we know,” Byul interjects. “It’s important to know what our public image is. Yoondo’s kind-of-agent gave us the rundown on this earlier. But they really shouldn’t bring up our _relationships_ when trying to talk about the quality of our music. We’re more than that.”

“Yeah, we are!” Wheein agrees. 

“Yeah!” Everyone turns to look at Eric when he says this.

Hwasa waves a finger at him. “You don’t get a say in this, Mr. Nation’s Big Brother. You’re just here to be Yongsunnie’s pillow. Shh.”

Eric laughs again, good-natured as always, but Solar feels him flick her in the ear a little bit. He, too, gets a glare from her for that.

She coughs a few times to regain attention of the room, and then continues reading.

“-the lyrics actually paint a story of a relationship much less conventional - that between these idols and the public. “I’ve forgotten how to be you,” the opening lines - sung by Wheein - go. “Play pretend / Put on my faces.””

“We know the lyrics too,” Wheein bemoans. She has two braids in her hair now. “We sang them, you know.”

Solar rolls her eyes. “Okay, okay. I’m skipping to the actual commentary. Happy?”

Wheein smiles. “Very much so.”

“The music video is the most remarkable part of the release… blah blah… While all the other girl’s stories are very notable, it was Moonbyul’s struggle with gender roles that stood out the most… blah blah… cacophony of laugh tracks… blah blah-”

“Okay,” Byul says, sitting up. “Now you’re skipping way too much.” Wheein slides a little bit off of her stomach and Solar watches them exchange teasing looks. “Just find the most important paragraph and read the whole thing to us.”

Solar holds her phone up in the air. “Okay, I’m done. Someone else read this. I give up. You all have bested me.”

Hwasa agreeably snatches the phone from her. Almost immediately her eyes widen at a certain paragraph.

“The whole thing has an element of the bubblegum-pop creepiness found in the previous music videos of Red Velvet’s Russian Roulette and Wonder Girls’ Why So Lonely,” she reads. Solar’s not quite sure whether or not to feel complimented by the comparison.

“Things at first seen as wonderful at the beginning of the video - an audience laughing at Solar’s jokes, a mirror that flashes when Hwasa looks especially fierce, a camera team that follows Wheein around and takes wonderful photos of her, a whirlwind romance for Byul - gradually become something sinister. The entire concept is neatly tied together by vague references throughout both the lyrics and the video to a genie who has granted all of their wishes, and taken them out of control. It works without feeling heavy handed. Applause to Mamamoo for that.”

Solar frowns. “I liked the one about the piano.”

Eric’s eyes widen. “There was a whole paragraph about the piano? Our piano part?”

Wheein scrunches her nose up. “ _Our song_ ,” she reminds him. “I don’t care how many times the two of you made out during the making of it.”

“And here I thought you were coming around to me,” Eric teases. 

“The piano part was nice!” Solar interjects, trying to steer the conversation away from her romantic life. “It deserved a whole paragraph! I don’t think that one butterfly effect in Hyejin’s parts really needed to be analyzed for that long, though.”

Hwasa scrolls a little further down in the article and makes a face. Almost immediately, Wheein crawls over and steals the phone from her. Solar begins to make plans for buying a new phone. She’s obviously never getting this one back.

Eric sees her frowning and leans up to kiss her. Solar smiles into it as her members continue to read various sections of the article aloud. One of his fingers loops into the ring around her neck and she’s pulled a little bit closer. From the open window across the room, the wind gently carries in the smell that comes after rain. It feels like summer.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Emi and Jordan for putting up with me for five months while I wrote this monster. Thanks to Skandl for giving me the courage to tackle something a little beyond "will they won't they?" Thanks to Isha for still saying nice things when I tried to send her the prose from this fic even though she's like Beyond Over It already. And, finally, thanks to Mitski, whose songs inspired a heavy majority of this fic, including the title.


End file.
